


This story is Not Romantic

by squidmemesinc



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Anal Sex, Bad Sex, Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Crossdressing, Lap Dances, M/M, Non-binary character, Rimming, Shower Sex, Trans Character, basically a bunch of really standard and slightly awful tropes, thigh fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:55:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4004932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidmemesinc/pseuds/squidmemesinc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can find some really interesting things in the newspaper these days. Besides the obituaries, which are always interesting, today there's someone offering free rent in exchange for sex. There's a picture in the ad, and frankly, aside from that hair and the candid expression, it could be worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao... I... This is for Cole and Kes. Cole, I'm sorry for getting you into ass eating.
> 
> More tags to be added with future chapters, if I remember, which I might not.  
> No idea when the next update is coming since it's the end of the quarter for me and I'm pretty busy BUT I'm also?? Somehow ridiculously invested in this ship so it could come fast. Who knows.
> 
> Credit to Gerri for Kuroo's tattoo ideas!!  
> https://twitter.com/seijousetter/status/587226802927443968  
> https://twitter.com/seijousetter/status/587304234254606337?s=09

You can find some really interesting things in the newspaper these days. It’s a shame no one reads them anymore. The digital age, and all.

Tooru does, when the mood strikes him, or when he happens to be looking for emergency housing, as he is now. It’s lucky, too. Well, maybe it’s weird. This ad is technically pretty weird. Weird to some people, and maybe under certain circumstances it would be weird to Tooru, but the picture is…quite frankly, it’s a ridiculous picture, but Tooru can still tell he’s attractive, and that’s enough for at least a start.

There’s no email, just a phone number. Which is fine. Tooru has been told he has a nice phone voice. He picks up his phone and calls. It rings, once, twice. He hopes he won’t have to leave a message. Not because it would make him anxious, just because he doesn’t feel like waiting. On the third ring, though— “Hello?”

“Hello,” Tooru croons into his phone. “Is this Kuroo Tetsurou?”

There’s the sound of shuffling, as if he’s switching his phone to the other ear. “Yeah, who’s this?”

“I’m calling about your ad in the paper. My name’s Oikawa Tooru.”

He laughs a short, light laugh. It’s a nice laugh that Tooru immediately appreciates. “What ad? Is this a joke?”

Hm! Interesting. “The ad says something about a person named Kuroo Tetsurou looking for a roommate, and gives this phone number.” Tooru pauses, but not long enough for Kuroo to reply. “I take it you’re not offering free rent in exchange for sex then?”

There’s the sound of him choking on the other end of the line, and fairly violent coughing, and in the background someone else is laughing. Tooru waits patiently for Kuroo to eviscerate whatever liquid he apparently swallowed down from his lungs, tapping his fingers on his thigh. The laughter seems to escalate as time goes on, but the coughing eventually dies down and there’s a loud thump, a “Hey!” and the laughter stops. “Bokuto, I swear to god, you are _dead_ ,” Kuroo says, clearly not to Tooru, but to someone named Bokuto. “I am _so sorry_. My best friend is a complete asshole.” He half mutters the next, “You say _one thing_ about how long it’s been since you got laid and…” Tooru thinks he hears more giggles at that from the Bokuto person. Kuroo clears his throat. “I’m really sorry.”

Tooru hasn’t stopped smiling throughout this whole conversation. He doesn’t stop now, either, even in the face of Kuroo’s apologetic tone, which is probably meant to discount everything the ad offers. But then again, that’s not something that’s likely to get Tooru to give up, particularly in the face of something so interesting. “No need to be sorry. Are you actually looking for a roommate?”

“Huh? Oh, uh. Well, sort of, I guess.”

Promising. “What do you say we get coffee then? Maybe we can work something out.”

“Um—I… Really?”

Tooru rolls his eyes. “Yes, really.”

“Uhh…okay, sure. I got nothing to lose, since my dignity is already gone.”

They arrange to meet.

**XXX**

Tooru arrives five minutes late. Kuroo is sitting at a table by one of the café’s windows, checking something on his phone. They didn’t tell each other what they look like, and Tooru is guessing Kuroo doesn’t know his picture was with the ad, so he orders a hazelnut latte and waits for the barista to make it before bringing it over to the table. He smiles at Kuroo, who looks slightly confused when he sits down, but connects the dots easily enough. “Are you Oikawa?”

The picture didn’t show it, but he’s got a tattoo circling around his wrist. Various black lines and shapes weave together and interlock with each other over his skin, from a centimeter so back from the edge of his palm to halfway up his forearm. “Were you expecting anyone else?” Tooru asks, sipping his drink.

“Hey, it was a fair question,” he says, offering a smile of his own. “How’d you know who I was?”

Tooru pulls the ad out of his pocket and slides it over still folded. Kuroo drops the smile and takes it, unfolding it slowly. He winces at the picture, presumably, then winces again once he actually reads the ad. “Wow, this is horrible. I am seriously going to kill Bokuto.”

“I thought it was kind of funny.”

“Why would you even reply to this?” Kuroo asks, folding the ad back up and pushing it back towards Tooru as if it’s diseased. “No offense.” He picks up his coffee.

“I guess I don’t have the same kind of opinions about sex as most people.” He starts to sip his drink, and then lowers it to add on what he hadn’t decided until just now that he was going to say. “I’m a stripper, and I like it. I don’t know. Free rent is pretty appealing.” He shrugs, but Kuroo’s already choking on his coffee again and probably doesn’t notice.

Tooru begins to think it’ll be dangerous for him to talk to him whenever Kuroo is drinking. “Sorry,” he says between coughs. “Like, actually?”

“Yeah. Does that bother you?” The skepticism in his question is thinly veiled, but whenever Tooru decides to reveal this bit of information about himself, he also decides not to take any bullshit.

Kuroo raises his eyebrows. One of them gets lost in his hair. That fringe is a little ridiculous, but somehow still attractive. “No.”

“Really?” Tooru’s mostly joking, since Kuroo seems so unsure about everything _he_ says, but he doesn’t think Kuroo catches it.

“Yeah. That’s cool.”

Tooru leans back in his chair. “Hm. Good, then.” There’s a beat of silence. Kuroo takes a tentative sip of his coffee. Tooru waits for him to swallow it this time before he says, “I would fuck you, though.”

His eyes go wide and he looks like he wants to cough, since it happened appropriately the last two times Tooru surprised him, but he probably realizes that that would be silly. Maybe his face goes a little red, though. “Wow. Thanks?”

“I mean, _I_ think it’s a compliment. What about you?”

Kuroo crosses his arms, then uncrosses them. Tooru’s eyes flick towards the tattoo. “Um. Yeah. I would,” Kuroo says.

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“I feel like it’s kind a sleazy thing to say to someone.”

“So you think me saying it to you was sleazy?”

“No! That’s not what I meant.”

Tooru quirks an eyebrow at him, takes another sip of his latte. “This place has good coffee.”

“I seriously didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know, I’m just messing with you.”

He nods. “Okay, good.”

“So is the rent really free?”

He looks around. “Uhh… I mean… I wasn’t really looking for a roommate. At least, not under those conditions.”

“Under what conditions, then? I can pay rent if you want. But I would also fuck you. I’m kind of in need of some emergency housing since I my current roommate is kicking me out.”

“Whoa, really? Why?”

Tooru arches an eyebrow again. “Noise complaints.” He smirks. Kuroo gets it this time, he thinks.

He clears his throat again. “Um. I guess the situation is… My current roommate—my best friend—the one who placed the ad—is taking next semester off. He’s studying abroad. But technically the rent’s already paid. His parents are pretty well-off, actually, it’s kind of ridiculous.”

Tooru eyes the ad, sitting folded up on the table, makes some inferences. “Do you want to live alone?”

“I’m not really opposed to it, but I guess I prefer to live with someone else.” He looks embarrassed, but shrugs himself out of it with a smile. “If I have someone to nag me, I don’t let as many dishes pile up.”

Tooru leans his elbows on the table and rests his chin on his laced fingers. “No promises on nagging, I don’t like doing dishes either. But for everything else… I’m game if you are.”

Kuroo stares back at him. He can’t seem to come up with an answer straight away, so he picks up his coffee and drinks it without looking at Tooru. But when he sets it down, he nods again. “What the hell, okay.” He sticks his hand out across the table.

Tooru takes it with a smile.

**XXX**

The apartment is nice. When Tooru had agreed to live in it, he hadn’t thought much about what kind of place it might be. He’s lived in all kinds of places, with all kinds of people, over the last few years, although he’s always won ‘most interesting job.’

Anyway, Kuroo’s apartment is one of the nicer ones. There’s a decent sized living room-type area, and they’ve got a decent sized TV and a couch with only a few mysterious stains on it. The coffee table has a mug ring on it, but Kuroo claims that was the fault of the previous owners, and it’s certainly not a deal breaker for Tooru. He decides it’s charm.

The kitchen has enough space that if you want to take something out of the oven, you can get past the open door if you need to, which is more than Tooru could say for his last two apartments, and the fourth to last one. The fridge is huge, for only two people—Tooru gets a whole shelf to himself, which he can’t easily fill, since he doesn’t have much time or energy for cooking.

Bokuto had taken a lot of his stuff with him when he went abroad, so the room was mostly cleared out for all of Tooru’s things. However, he finds a poster under the bed that must have fallen off the wall and been forgotten, and he actually smiles when he sees it’s for a hostile-robot-takeover-type flick he thinks he saw once in high school. He hangs it back up and sticks a post-it note on it complimenting Bokuto’s taste that he hopes will be seen someday.

The whole place is cleaner than Kuroo led him to believe. Not that it will be for long, if Tooru’s living there.

So the apartment is nice.

However, after a week, Tooru feels like he still doesn’t know anything about him. Which is okay. Tooru doesn’t need to be his new best friend. But they don’t have the…kinds of interactions…Tooru _wants_ either.

Their weekdays go like this: Kuroo wakes up, starts making breakfast, and by the time he’s done, Tooru’s alarm has gone off. He showers as Kuroo eats and makes coffee, which he usually shares with Tooru, which is nice, because Tooru doesn’t know how to work his fancy coffee maker. Tooru goes to class, Kuroo goes to class a bit later (why he gets up so far in advance, Tooru has no idea). Tooru gets back from class, Kuroo gets back from class. Tooru hangs out at the table to do homework for a little while, eventually makes something to eat for dinner, while Kuroo squirrels himself away in his room to study and comes out to eat much later. They go to bed. Rinse, repeat.

They have interaction of course, but it’s just small talk. The worst thing about small talk, Tooru has always thought, is that there’s no physical component to it. Maybe he hasn’t always thought that, but he sure is now. It seems so boring, like he’s skirting around the issue.

On Saturday Tooru catches him watching a movie, drinking a beer. He sits down at the opposite side of the couch, but puts his legs on the cushions so his feet are touching Kuroo’s thigh. He catches Kuroo’s eyes as they dart down, but he doesn’t make any other movement. “Have you seen this?” Kuroo asks after a minute.

“Maybe, I don’t know,” he replies without looking at the screen. He wiggles his toes.

He thinks Kuroo tries to shift a little bit out of the reach of his toes. He gives up after a bit since he has to go to work anyway.

**XXX**

Another week passes in a very similar way. Kuroo is doing dishes when Tooru gets home from class on Friday. “It’s the weekend and you’re cleaning?” he asks, dropping his bag by the table.

“They were piling up,” Kuroo says, scrubbing at a pan. The pan Tooru used to make stir fry yesterday.

Tooru puts his hands on Kuroo’s shoulders and squeezes. “Sorry. I would have done them tomorrow.” Kuroo gets tenser as Tooru massages him. He scrubs harder.

“It’s not a big deal, we didn’t really decide on a cleaning schedule or anything.”

Tooru withdraws his hands and leans on the counter to look at Kuroo’s face. “You don’t look like the kind of person who has a problem asking for what he wants. And yet.”

Kuroo gives a noncommittal shrug, actively avoids looking at him. “I guess that’s why I was living with Bokuto. I don’t mind telling him what to do. How about we clean dishes within…two days of using them?”

Tooru rolls his eyes and heaves himself off the counter. “Sure,” he says, retreating into his room.

He jerks off twice before work, a little angrily, but it’s better than nothing.

**XXX**

By the third week, he is downright frustrated.

The worst thing is, he’s been catching Kuroo looking at him. Not just a passing glance, but picking out some feature of his body as he passes him on the couch, as he’s leaving for class, when he walks past Tooru’s open door to get to the kitchen. His roam more than flick across him. He’s more than just scenery, he’s a centerpiece. It’s infuriating. If he’s willing to look, why is that all he does?

Tooru starts to make a point to not get dressed immediately after taking a shower. He puts on his underwear and finds excuses to go out into the kitchen, to peek into Kuroo’s room mostly naked and ask where the sugar is so he can make tea, and while he’s at it, does he want any?

He never wants any.

Kuroo’s looks get longer, but that’s all. He maintains the same damn distance. And meanwhile, Tooru finds himself wanting more, looking longer himself.

Kuroo’s got another tattoo. Tooru sees it when he wears t-shirts with slightly shorter sleeves, peeking out from under the cuff. And he’s got the look of someone with a nice body, even though Tooru’s never seen him shirtless. He wears shorts sometimes, and his calves are nice, anyway. He remembers the feel of Kuroo’s shoulder muscles under his hands and thinks there must be more than just that.

It’s not just a casual “Yeah, I would fuck him” now. He actually _wants_ Kuroo. Something in him is stopping him from going home with people from the club like he used to. Stops him from racking up more noise complaints. He can’t just fuck anyone, this is personal. This whole ‘look but don’t touch’ thing is just plain insulting.

Tooru knows he’s irresistible. Oh, how many times has he been told that, in those exact words?

So why is Kuroo resisting?

**XXX**

It’s a little ridiculous that he should have to take matters into his own hands, Tooru thinks. But he’s going to do it anyway.

Tooru knocks twice and waits for a minute, but there’s no response. He half hopes he’s jerking off so he can join him; maybe there would be fewer barriers that way. Just jumping right in, or something.

He pushes the door open. Kuroo’s fully clothed, on his bed with his laptop in his lap, headphones over his ears. It’s not jerking off, but at least they won’t have to relocate.

Kuroo looks up when Tooru opens the door. “What’s up?” he asks, lifting one side of the headphones off his ear.

Tooru doesn’t answer; he just crosses the room, only stopping once he’s within reach of Kuroo’s laptop. He closes it with one hand and gently lifts the headphones off Kuroo’s ears.

“Uhh,” Kuroo says, watching him as he’s setting them on the desk, eyebrows slightly drawn together. With his lap now vacated, Tooru climbs over it. He stays on his knees, one planted on either side of Kuroo’s thighs, hovering over him, looking down with a predatory smile. Kuroo looks up and swallows. He’s got his attention. Good.

“Do you remember how we met?” Tooru asks coolly, placing his hands on Kuroo’s shoulders. It’s the first time they’ve touched since the very brief massage Tooru gave him a few weeks ago, and even now it’s not so much them touching as Tooru touching him.

Kuroo’s still looking up at him, cautiously, his hands resting on his bed. “Yeah.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird, then, that we’ve been living together for over a month and I still haven’t paid any…. _rent?_ ” He trails the fingers of one hand along the collar of Kuroo’s t-shirt, watches with satisfaction as he shivers almost unnoticeably.

He glances up from Tooru’s fingers. “Oikawa—”

Tooru interrupts him. “Do you know how many people want to have sex with me?”

Kuroo forces his mouth into a small smile. “Is it more or less than two?” Sassy, but Tooru can tell he’s still nervous.

He narrows his eyes, but doesn’t drop his smile. “ _Significantly_ more than two. Do you know how many people I currently want to have sex with? I’ll give you a hint: It’s less than two.”

Kuroo’s smile droops a little as his eyes widen. His eyes, which had been locked to Tooru’s face, travel down his long neck, across the collarbones exposed by his loose shirt, down his chest. He realizes what he’s doing and flicks back up, looking guilty. “Is this some kind of confession?” He’s still trying to joke, how cute. Well, Tooru appreciates banter as much as the next guy.

“Some kind,” Tooru agrees. “But it’s not about love, it’s about sex.” He brings his fingers under Kuroo’s chin and guides it so Kuroo’s looking in his eyes.

Kuroo finally lifts up his hand and curls it around Tooru’s fingers, gently lowering it away from his face. The first time—ever—that he’s willingly touched him. Tooru frowns slightly as he looks at his fingers peeking out from beneath Kuroo’s. “Listen, Oikawa, I’m flattered, but I don’t want you to do anything you wouldn’t normally do.”

Tooru pulls his hand away. This isn’t the kind of touch he wants. Notthis reluctant, gentle let down. “I thought I made it pretty clear before that this is something I would normally do. It’s something I want to do. You sure are making it difficult.”

Kuroo makes a face. “You don’t even know me,” he offers.

“I wasn’t aware that was a necessary precursor to having sex,” Tooru quips. “Haven’t you ever had a one night stand? Friends with benefits?”

“Not really,” he admits.

Tooru looks down at him for a bit, studying him, reluctant to ask what he knows he has to ask. But there’s no way he misread this conversation. Kuroo’s just standing in his own way. In both of their ways. “If you don’t want to fuck me, that’s something else. But I get the feeling that you do, the way you’ve been looking at me these past few weeks. That’s not a platonic look.”

He looks guilty now. “Okay… I guess I have to admit that I’ve thought about it.”

“A lot.”

“More than once.”

Tooru smirks. “A lot.”

“Maybe.” Kuroo cracks a smile back.

Tooru tries putting his hands on Kuroo’s shoulders again. “So. You want to. I want to. Why aren’t we?”

He bites his lip and nods. “Compelling argument.”

And then he’s pushed backward, falling onto Kuroo’s sheets as Kuroo’s hands cage him in. He has half a second to smirk triumphantly before Kuroo’s lips are pressing against his. Tooru sighs happily, slipping his fingers into Kuroo’s hair, gripping the back of his shirt. He opens his mouth easily for Kuroo’s tongue, moans when it slips in. He uses it well, flicking across his teeth, sliding against his own tongue thickly, wetly. Tooru appreciates by humming, tugging at his hair, scraping his nails down his back and spreading his legs, hoping Kuroo will settle between them.

Kuroo groans when Tooru bites his lip, and again when Tooru yanks hard on his hair when he returns the favor. He pegged him as someone who liked having his hair pulled, and he can tell he was right. He moves the hand on Kuroo’s back down to his ass, gives it a testing squeeze. The verdict is: _firm_. He pulls down until Kuroo takes the hint and drops his hips onto Tooru’s.

Kuroo’s lips move away from his, traveling down his cheek until his teeth are sinking down into his neck. Tooru gasps and thrusts his hips up, rolls them in a circle, leans into Kuroo’s teeth. He appreciates every point of contact—Kuroo’s mouth sucking a bruise into his neck, Kuroo’s chest pressing against his, Kuroo’s groin bringing him friction where he most wants it.

Kuroo finishes with his neck and gets up on his knees to pull off his shirt and _hello_. The view from here is nice, and Tooru’s smiling up at Kuroo as he tugs the shirt off his head. Not to mention, he finally gets at that tattoo that he’s seen barely peeking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt. It’s thick, geometrically arranged lines, wrapping around his shoulder and bicep like a maze, though unconventional. It’s got more curves, and short blocks in places interrupting the flow. It’s different from the one on his wrist, but complements it at the same time.

Tooru lets his eyes travel back up to Kuroo’s face. “You sure got into this quick,” he teases.

“Yeah, well,” Kuroo says, throwing the shirt onto the floor. His cheeks are definitely a little red now. “You said ‘a lot’ and you weren’t really wrong.”

“Oh?” Tooru says, quirking his head to the side, showing off the bruise Kuroo gave him. He slides his hands down his stomach, watching Kuroo watch them as the reach the edge of his jeans. They don’t stop there, though. “You ever think about me when you jerk off?” he asks as he unbuttons his own pants and pushes them down his hips a bit. Kuroo’s still just watching.

“Is that crossing a line?” He’s smiling, maybe a little guiltily. His eyes linger around Tooru’s lower body as he pulls his cock out from his underwear and wraps a hand around it.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who has lines like that?” Tooru breathes, squirming against his own hand. He likes that Kuroo’s watching him, likes his expression. It looks hungry.

“Not particularly,” he admits. He leans down and starts tugging Tooru’s pants the rest of the way off his legs. Tooru lets him, letting go of his prick when required.

“I’ve thought about you,” Tooru says. “I wanted you to do things to me.” When he’s naked half naked, he bends his knees, angling them outward with his feet close to his body.

“What kinds of things?” He works at the fastenings of his own pants and starts getting them off.

Tooru lazily strokes his cock. It’s agonizing, but he’s wanted this for too long to just let it end quickly. “All sorts of things.”

Kuroo grins and sits cross-legged on the bed in his underwear. “Will you let me do something, then?” he asks.

“Probably,” Tooru replies, curious.

“Just trust me, you’ll like it.” Tooru nods, and Kuroo grabs his hips, pulling him suddenly up—far up. His shoulders are against his shins, and his back is against his chest. Kuroo’s arms are holding him around his stomach, keeping him from sliding down.

“You’re not going to— _ooh._ ” He interrupts himself, twisting his head into the sheets to stifle a gasp as he feels something wet flick across his hole. It happens again and this time he does make a sound, a low moan. He hears Kuroo chuckle before he sucks at the skin there. This is almost too much. Tooru’s not shy, but this position leaves him particularly vulnerable, the way his legs are being pulled down by gravity, opening him up to Kuroo’s tongue. He can feel every slick stroke of his tongue, hear the sounds in the quiet room, above his own heavy breathing.

When he pushes it deep inside him, Tooru gasps and grabs at the sheets. He’s being eased open by Kuroo’s _tongue_. Somehow it’s so much warmer than fingers; hotter, even. He writhes in Kuroo’s arms, trying to buck up against his mouth as best as he can from this angle, because he needs _more_ , but it doesn’t offer much purchase. He gets the sense that Kuroo’s smiling at his desperation, even though that’s probably technically impossible with what he’s doing.

Kuroo shoves in impossibly deep and Tooru whines. “Oh my god,” he whispers. “I don’t know why you thought—gh—I wouldn’t want this. Ahh…” Kuroo hums in some form of agreement, which is an entirely new sensation that elicits another groan from Tooru. He closes his eyes and snakes his hand up to wrap around his cock again. Greedily, he thinks of all the ways he could have Kuroo inside him, which only makes him ache more.

“Kuroo, please…” he says, playing up his own desperation. He would also bet money on Kuroo being weak to begging, so he exaggerates a little. Tooru doesn’t mind begging every once in a while. ‘Please’ and batting your eyelashes can get you a surprising amount in life.

Kuroo pulls back and bites gently at the inside of Tooru’s thigh, making him twitch. He lets Tooru slide down and out of his arms, watches as he flips over on his hands and knees, tilts his head to the side, looking up at him.

“You look like a cat,” he comments, leaning back on his hands and smirking.

“Meow,” Tooru says, placing a strategic eye-bat.

“I like cats.”

“Do you like to fuck cats?”

Kuroo laughs. “Not particularly.”

“Then I don’t want to be a cat.” He crawls into Kuroo’s lap again, trails his fingers along and down the back of his arm, wrapping them finally around the tattoo on his wrist, bringing it up so he can slowly take Kuroo’s fingers into his mouth. He starts with just the tips, flicking his tongue across the calloused pads as he stares directly into Kuroo’s eyes. Kuroo pushes them in deeper into his mouth, slowly, sliding them along Tooru’s tongue. He swirls his tongue around them as Kuroo thrusts them in and out, making them nice and wet. Kuroo finally pulls them out with a pop and Tooru eagerly raises himself up.

Kuroo’s fingers press into him and he sighs in pleasure. They’re thick and long, and his nails are thankfully clipped short. Tooru wonders if that was a subconscious thing, or if he thought it was inevitable after all. He allows himself to sink down on Kuroo’s fingers for a bit, feel the pleasant stretch as he spreads them, but then he moves his hands to the waistband of Kuroo’s boxers. “Are you in pain, or just some kind of saint?”

“Would you believe a little bit of both?”

“The former, yes; the latter, not for a second. Mm…” Tooru turns his head into his shoulder as Kuroo presses in particularly deep. “Want some help?” He slips his fingers under the elastic.

“I like watching you,” he says. The look in his eyes is earnest. A little too earnest, but not enough for Tooru to worry yet.

“I think we’ve established that,” he teases. Best to keep it light at this point. He still wants to get off with him, after all. He thrusts in deep in response and Tooru squeaks, clutching at his shoulders. “Okay, enough of this already. Do you have a condom?”

He pulls his hand back and twists around. Tooru climbs off him so he can get to the desk, and meanwhile sizes up that bulge in his boxers, and decides he won’t be disappointed.

Kuroo comes back with both a condom _and_ lube, hooray. Tooru grins and attacks his boxers, pulling them down without restraint. Kuroo lifts his hips and lets him strip him down, and he does look a little less uncomfortable now that his cock isn’t being confined. “I take it you want to…?” He offers his full hand to Tooru, who takes the condom and lube from him.

“Merry Christmas, Tooru,” he breathes to himself as he rips the packet open. Kuroo watches him roll the condom on, and sucks in a breath as he finally gets some contact. Tooru smirks at his disappointed expression when his hands leave his prick to get the lube. “Relax, almost there.” He squirts some of the stuff into his hands and purposefully takes longer than necessary warming it up between his fingers and palm.

“Oikawa, come on,” Kuroo pleads.

“I thought you liked watching.”

“I changed my mind.”

Tooru purses his lips, though he’s still smiling. “That’s not allowed, but I suppose since I’m so _nice_ …” He curls his wet fingers around Kuroo’s cock and gives him a hard stroke, grinning devilishly at the moan he earns.

“ _God_.” His hips lift up, seeking the friction of Tooru’s hand, and Tooru watches the lines of his body bend eagerly. He keeps moving his hand, thinking maybe Kuroo had something when he said he liked watching. This is nice. However, it’s not nice enough for him to ignore the ache in his own body, and he lets go and moves forward over Kuroo’s hips.

Kuroo looks up at him, clearly biting the inside of his cheek as he watches Tooru line himself up. He moves his hands to his thighs, running them around the backs and the tops over the muscle Tooru has toned so well. He starts to sink down, fast, and he smirks as Kuroo grunts from suddenly being fully inside him as he lets out a moan of his own. “Ahh… You feel nice,” Tooru says, rolling his hips a little.

Kuroo’s gripping his thighs now. “I could say the same,” he manages after a moment, rolling back.

Tooru lets out a low moan, mostly for effect, but he really is enjoying the feel of Kuroo’s cock inside of him. He wraps a hand loosely around his own and lets his eyes flutter shut for a moment as he gives himself a few pulls.

“You have really nice hands,” Kuroo says.

Tooru’s eyes opens and he shifts up a little, then down, drawing a quiet gasp out of him. “I’m good with them too.”

“I believe it.” Kuroo’s gripping his hips pretty hard, but is clearly doing his best not to thrust up into him. What a shame, Tooru thought they were past that.

“You don’t have to be gentle with me, you know. I’m a big boy.” He trails the fingers of his free hand over Kuroo’s chest as he starts to move, tilting his fingers down so his nails scrape across Kuroo’s skin.

Kuroo sucks in a breath and starts to move with him, somewhat hesitantly. “Shocking as it may seem, I haven’t done this in a while— _hhg, fuck_ —I’m _trying_ to make it last.”

Tooru grins and bobs up and down over Kuroo’s cock, stroking himself in time. “Sounds like we have to work on your stamina.”

“ _Ahh_ ,” Kuroo groans. His hips jerk up, and his hands slip down Tooru’s thighs, and Tooru’s once again glad for his short nails. His boss is pretty strict about marks he can’t cover up with concealer, although if he were going to let anyone mark him up, it would be Kuroo. He wants Kuroo to want him enough to mark him up. He’s sure he does, but it’s just a matter of getting him to admit it and to actually act on it.

He grinds down on Kuroo’s cock and lets out lewd sounds, not even remotely bothered that they might permeate through their walls to their neighbors apartment. The slick sounds of the lube and their flesh meeting with every thrust just brings him closer. “Mmm, Kuroo…” he croons.

“ _Fuck_ , Oikawa, _nng_ … I can’t last that much l-longer…”

Tooru thrusts himself hard down on Kuroo’s cock, making him practically yell. “Mm… Well don’t hold back on my—ahh—account.” He’s panting pretty hard himself, stroking himself fervently as he fucks down onto Kuroo.

He watches as Kuroo comes, gripping his thighs and slamming up into him, with as much enthusiasm as Tooru would have liked to see from the beginning. He clenches his muscles around him as soon as he hears the edge in Kuroo’s voice, enjoys the hard fucking he earns in return, and moans unabashedly. He slips off him, getting up on his knees to give his thighs a break from the strain, and jerks himself off. Kuroo watches, still running his hands along the bottoms of his thighs. It doesn’t take him too long to finish, making a mess of his hand and Kuroo’s stomach. After, he shakily collapses next to Kuroo on the bed.

By this time Kuroo’s recovered enough to clean up a little bit, reaching for the tissue box on his desk and handing some to Tooru.

“Such a gentleman,” Tooru murmurs, accepting the gift.

“It’s the least I could do,” Kuroo says back. He rolls off the bed to grab his underwear from the floor before settling back on the bed next to Tooru. Tooru has no problem being this naked in front of him. If he did, he wouldn’t have agreed to this whole arrangement in the first place. He closes his eyes for a brief minute, waiting for his breathing to return to normal.

When it does, he turns over and pushes himself up. Kuroo had his eyes closed, but he opens them at the shifting weight on the bed.

Tooru starts grabbing his clothes from the floor and moves over to the door. He turns and salutes. “Well, that was fun. I’m gonna take a shower if that’s okay with you.”

Kuroo sits up, scratching at his hair. “Not much for pillow talk, are you?”

Tooru winks at him. “I don’t believe that was in the terms of our agreement.” And with that, he shuts the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have you know I considered adding a THIRD sex scene to this chapter that is already......80% sex. That number may be inflated, I can't even tell anymore.
> 
> Anyway. I added some tags. I didn't include any of the small pairings because they're...small.
> 
> I'm going to hell.

He’s going to have shower tile marks on his knees for an hour after this, Tooru thinks as he fits the last few centimeters of Kuroo’s cock into his mouth and sucks hard.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Oikawa,” Kuroo gasps, fingers tightening in Tooru’s sodden hair, holding him in place.

Tooru gives his best porn star moan (something he has, admittedly, studied for and practiced, despite never having been in a porno), and rolls his eyes up to Kuroo’s face. He catches his gaze and pulls off slowly, maintaining a steady pressure. His hand trails down his thigh, cutting the trails of the water droplets prematurely in their paths down his leg as he cups Kuroo’s balls and gives them a light squeeze.

“Ah…” He breaks eye contact when Tooru swirls his tongue thickly around the head of his dick, pressing his back into the wall of the shower. Tooru bobs back down, looking up at him with big brown eyes, aware of the water clinging to his eyelashes, making them stick together in sharp little points. Their moans echo off the tiled walls amidst the smattering of the water, coming back louder and dirtier, which just fuels them both.

Kuroo looks so different with wet hair, Tooru thinks. He looks different every day they take showers together, since he doesn’t go to bed with wet hair and wake up with that crazy bedhead. Tooru had thought at first that he styled it that way on purpose, but when he told him the real reason for it, it made sense. He thinks he kind of likes the crazy bedhead look better than when Kuroo’s hair behaves as he wants it to. He’s told him, but Kuroo just shrugs and says something about sex in the morning being worth not looking his best.

Kuroo’s orgasm sneaks up on Tooru. He gets too into sucking his cock, and sucking it hard, moaning throatily around it and playing with his sack that he makes him come faster than he means to. He handles it, though, pulling back and jerking him off with his hand, letting his cum splatter on his face, only to be washed away by the shower spray.

He stands up, knees slightly wobbly and painful from supporting his weight against the hard surface, dick slightly painful as well, and presses himself against Kuroo, who kisses him gently. Oikawa abandons his kissing, since it’s got less fire than he wants, and buries his face in Kuroo’s shoulder, nipping at his skin. He runs his nails along Kuroo’s thighs, scraping hard enough to leave marks and make him twitch.

“Be nice,” Kuroo chides, slapping the side of his hip lightly. Tooru bites him. Kuroo smacks him on the ass this time, making him jump, but also giggle.

“What exactly do you think that’s going to accomplish?” he croons into Kuroo’s ear, moving up his neck to make a new mark against the tendons. He rubs his cock against Kuroo’s thigh to try to incite him into action. He knows he’s not too tired to work his hand; he’s just being a dickhead.

“Frustrate you, maybe,” Kuroo says back. He squeezes Tooru’s ass, runs his hands along his thighs, up and across them to skate over his stomach. Anywhere but his cock, damn the bastard.

Tooru whines and breaks away from the second bruise to let his lips brush against Kuroo’s ear. “After I was so nice… I fit your whole dick in my mouth, you know.”

Kuroo flips them around so Tooru’s pressed against the wall now, his hand snaking quickly between Tooru’s splayed legs to wrap around him. Tooru gasps and arches off the wall, bucking into his warm fingers. “And you looked good doing it,” he whispers against Tooru’s cheek before kissing it gently.

Tooru hooks his wrists behind Kuroo’s neck, rocking his hips lightly with Kuroo’s hand. “I always look good doing it.”

“Bet mine looks the best.” He kisses Tooru before he has a chance to reply, thrusting his tongue deep and rough into his mouth. The hand not wrapped around his prick skims up his torso until his fingers twist at Tooru’s nipple.

“Mmm,” Tooru whines into the kiss, thrusting harder against his hand. He’s pent-up enough that it won’t take him long to come now, especially with Kuroo flicking his pinching at his chest and pumping him fast and hard. He gropes for the shower handle and cranks up the heat the last little bit that they’ve been saving, and the water comes down on them refreshingly warm. He presses his forehead to Kuroo’s and moans loudly as he comes.

He slumps against Kuroo afterwards, leaning his head into Kuroo’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around his back.

“I think we’re going to run out of hot water soon,” Kuroo says.

“Shut up,” Tooru sighs back.

**XXX**

“Hey, so,” Kuroo says suddenly, interrupting Tooru’s concentration on the TV show they had been watching, “me and Bokuto used to do this thing in the middle of every quarter where we’d have a party around the middle of the quarter. Kind of a stress relief thing. Invite some people, you know.”

Tooru turns to look at him, hums with interest.

“Usually we’d just play drinking games and maybe watch something.”

“Are you asking or telling?” Tooru says with a sly smile.

“Well it didn’t just have to be a ‘me’ thing, it could be an ‘us’ thing.” Tooru quirks an eyebrow. Kuroo backtracks, looking a little red. “Weird phrasing. I just meant you should invite some people. If you’re interested.”

Tooru has met some of Kuroo’s friends on a few occasions. They come over sometimes to do homework, sometimes to have a few beers and chill out, but for the most part they seem likable enough. Either way, Tooru is very good at getting along with people, so they don’t bother him.

For the most part, he hasn’t invited his friends over, but he’s mentioned them to Kuroo before, and he’s gone to see them. There’s no real reason he hasn’t brought them to this apartment, it just hasn’t really come up. He’s been busy trying to figure out how to get Kuroo into his pants. But now that that’s settled, this seems like an okay time. Part of the reason he’s watching this dumb show with Kuroo is because he’s trying to avoid studying for midterms, but alcohol will be much better for that. “Sounds nice. I’ll get the word out.”

Kuroo looks relieved, or maybe excited. “Usually we keep it small, since the place isn’t that big and we don’t want any noise complaints.”

“Noise complaints are my specialty, if you remember.”

Kuroo grins. “I remember. I thought maybe you’d be trying not to get kicked out.”

Tooru shrugs. “Yeah, well.”

They’re at risk for noise complaints as it is.

**XXX**

It’s 12 AM on Saturday and there are six of them sprawled around Tooru and Kuroo’s living room, all at varying places of intoxication, playing Osama. Tooru managed to convince Matsukawa and Hanamaki to skip date night and come hang out, and Kuroo wrangled Akaashi and Kenma for their little party. Kenma’s not drinking, and Akaashi, despite their somewhat dainty appearance, must be some kind of tank, or doesn’t never acts drunk, or has been somehow pouring the alcohol into the couch.

But the rest of them are pretty fucked up.

The king’s commands have been escalating since they started playing two hours ago. Somehow, they’ve also gotten more creative and dirtier.

Hanamaki draws the king chopstick, taps it against his cheek as he thinks. “Okay, two, do a body shot off of five.” And he takes a sip of his drink, looking around at the group with a devious grin.

Tooru smirks and unfurls his fingers from the little scrawled ‘2’ he was covering on his chopstick, looking around as well. Akaashi holds up their chopstick, which has a small ‘5’ etched into it.

Tooru heaves himself off of Kuroo’s lap, which he’d barely realized he’d been lying in on the couch, to check the fridge, shivering slightly at the way his back feels cold now. He calls back, “Kuroo-chaaaan, do we even have any limes?”

“Check the bottom drawer in the fridge!” Kuroo half-yells.

He finds one, then turns to the various bottles of liquor on their counter, searching. “Did you buy tequila?”

“Nope, I hate tequila!”

Vodka it is, then, even though that’ll be a little weird with salt and a lime.

Truthfully, Tooru should probably say no to another shot, but he won’t get sick from it, so he’s not going to. He hums over the sound of them talking and laughing in the other room as he cuts up the lime.

He rejoins them in the living room a minute later with a shot glass full of vodka in one hand, and a lime slice and salt shaker in the other hand. “Where do you want me?” Tooru asks, cocking his hip to the side.

Akaashi tilts their head to the side and unbuttons a few buttons of their shirt, exposing their long, smooth neck. “This okay?”

Matsukawa and Hanamaki are swatting at each other and giggling, Kuroo lets out a low ‘Oooooh,’ and Kenma looks up from checking her phone. Tooru offers the lime to their mouth, and they gently take it between their teeth. He carefully holds the shot and the salt shaker and settles on their lap. He curves his back and licks up a long stripe from the edge of Akaashi’s collarbone all the way up to just under their ear, then pulls back and shakes some salt onto the trail.

“Damn,” Kuroo says, something about his expression a little more vacant than it maybe should be, but Tooru doesn’t really catch it considering how drunk he is.

“Damn is right,” Matsukawa agrees. Hanamaki nods and snickers.

Tooru licks up the line of salt slowly, putting on a show for the rest of them that they didn’t ask for, but whatever; it was implied in the dare. He does his best not to smell the shot before he takes it and somehow manages not to choke on the harsh burn of it slipping down his throat. He reclaims his suaveness as he bites the lime out of Akaashi’s mouth, just slightly brushing their lips with his own before pulling away.

He sucks the sour juice out of it and rolls his head back. “Mmm. Shots are so gross but that was nice. Am I going to get you in trouble with Bokuto-san?” He gets up off Akaashi’s lap and returns to the couch with Kuroo.

Akaashi is shaking salt out of their clothes. “No, he’ll be fine, or I wouldn’t have done it,” they say, smirking back at Tooru. Tooru gasps and winks.

“You’re all flirty drunks,” Kenma comments, gathering up the chopsticks they’ve all set on the coffee table.

“Kenma, remember that time we got drunk and—”

“I remember.” She scowls a little and offers the chopsticks to him. He takes one and starts loudly humming a song—some pop song Tooru’s heard but can’t place with his head this fuzzy. Kenma throws Kuroo a dirty look and he stops.

“I want to hear the story!” he says.

“Take a chopstick,” Kenma orders him. He obliges, pouting. Kuroo waits until Kenma looks away, then quickly mouths ‘karaoke’ to him, and Tooru hopes he’ll remember to ask about the story later.

“Who’s king?” Akaashi asks once they’ve all gotten their chopsticks.

Tooru looks at his chopstick for the first time. “Me!” he exclaims. “This game is getting too sexy. I think we need something cute.”

“Boo,” Hanamaki says, still wearing a smile.

“I like sexy,” Kuroo offers.

“Shut up, all of you! I’m king and I want three to kiss four on the cheek.”

Kuroo ‘aww’s before taking a sip of his drink.

“I’m three,” Kenma says, showing the chopstick to prove it.

Matsukawa shows his chopstick and taps turns his face to offer his cheek. “It must be my lucky day,” he says as modestly as he can, being a bit of a sarcastic tool. No one would say no to a kiss on the cheek from Kenma, though.

Kenma gets up, straightens out the skirt of her dress and crosses around the coffee table to where Matsukawa is. She bends down slightly and presses a short kiss to his cheek without any fuss, then turns around and sits back in her spot.

There is a collective warm smile shared amongst the group, and Matsukawa touches his cheek gently, mostly trying to play into the cutesy atmosphere.

Tooru throws up his hands at the softened mood. “See! That was nice!”

“It was nice, Oikawa-san,” Akaashi agrees, offering the gathered chopsticks to all of them.

Matsukawa holds up his chopstick once they’ve all pulled. “It was nice, but nice is boring. Sorry Oikawa. One and four, make out for a minute.”

“Issei, you idiot,” Hanamaki says, tapping him on the forehead with the ‘1’ chopstick.

“Oops. Who’s four?”

Kuroo raises a hand. “Me, but you can pick something else if you want.”

Matsukawa punches Hanamaki lightly on the arm. “No one has made out yet! Do it for the team, Takahiro.”

“You sure you’re not going to get jealous?” Hanamaki asks. He wiggles his eyebrows.

“I can’t take back a dare,” Matsukawa protests, looking only a little reluctant.

Kuroo is twirling his chopstick around across his thumb and index finger, waiting for the verdict, but Hanamaki stands up, and he shrugs and nudges Tooru off him. (He’d settled into his lap, again, without realizing, again). Tooru sits up a little unsteadily and rubs his eyes as he watches them come together at the other side of the coffee table.

Kenma pulls out her phone again. “I’m setting a timer,” she announces.

“Thanks, Kenma,” Kuroo says, maybe a little sarcastically. He settles his hands on Hanamaki’s hips, and Hanamaki throws his arms around his shoulders. They both look a little awkward, and Tooru smiles lazily at it. “Say when.”

“Now,” Kenma says.

There’s a moment’s hesitation between them, but Hanamaki seems to press forward a little faster and seal his lips over Kuroo’s. Maybe it’s the alcohol; maybe it’s the fact that they’re all “flirty drunks,” as Kenma said; maybe it’s the fact that they only have a minute; maybe there’s some kind of competition going between the six of them, and Kuroo and Hanamaki want to win it—but they get really into it really fast.

Watching them, watching Kuroo’s eyes as they quickly pinch shut and the way he sucks at Hanamaki’s lip, watching his hands slip slightly back over Hanamaki’s hips, Tooru is pretty convinced. He wonders if Kuroo has forgotten that Hanamaki isn’t single, or if Kuroo is just that passionate every time he kisses someone. He can easily imagine himself being where Hanamaki is, looking exactly as he does, because it’s happened so many times now. But that’s not him, he keeps realizing dazedly.

The minute seems to go on for an eternity, and when he finally glances away for a moment, he notices Akaashi smiling and Kenma looking rapt, and he also notices that his own face feels slightly slack. He’s not smiling. He’s the only one.

“Stop,” Kenma says, and they abruptly pull away from each other’s mouths. Kuroo pats Hanamaki’s hip awkwardly and Hanamaki pulls his hands back, flashes peace signs to Tooru, Kenma, and Akaashi, and sits back down.

Matsukawa nudges his knee with his own. “Have fun?”

“More fun than kissing you,” Hanamaki quips back. Matsukawa punches him in the arm.

“You okay, Oikawa?” Kuroo asks as he’s sitting down again.

“I think I had too much to drink,” Tooru says, offering a slightly weaker smile than his usual.

“Maybe we should stop for tonight,” Kuroo suggests.

Akaashi checks their phone. “I have to be up in seven hours, so I should go.”

“We should probably head back too,” Matsukawa agrees.

Kenma just stands up. “Do you want any help cleaning?”

“Kenma, would you really help us?”

“Well, I was hoping you’d say no,” she admits.

Kuroo laughs. “We’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

Tooru stands, and everyone else stands as well. They manage to say their goodbyes and confirm that everyone’s okay to walk back to their respective apartments, wave each other off.

Tooru closes the door, locks it, and presses his back firmly against it. Kuroo was standing behind him, is now in front of him, right where he wants him.

“I like your friends,” he says.

“I got that impression.”

He scoffs, looking amused. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Anyway, now that we’re alone—”

“I thought you felt sick.”

Tooru shrugs. “Sick, horny. All that licking and making out kind of got me riled up.”

Now he laughs. “Me too, I guess.”

Tooru presses his hands and back flat against the door, tilts his head to the side. “Come here.”

Kuroo does, raising a hand to press against the door next to Oikawa’s head. With his other hand he guides Tooru’s cheek up so he can kiss him, pressing hard against him, and suddenly the still, quiet room is filled with the sound of them both pulling in deep breaths through their noses, and the little wet noises their tongues and lips make. Tooru isn’t sure when their mouths opened, but they did, and he’s sucking on and biting and Kuroo’s tongue.

Their bodies are pressed close together, and Kuroo’s hands move to push up the hem of his shirt. He tugs it up between them with a little difficulty, only breaking the kiss when the fabric has to move between their lips. Tooru doesn’t waste any time going for Kuroo’s pants. He wasn’t kidding about being horny. It kind of snuck up on him, but now that he has the urge, he’s not going to deny it.

“Here?” Kuroo breathes against his open mouth, as his belt is pulled from its loops and flung somewhere.

Tooru doesn’t answer, he just keeps kissing him and pushes him towards his room. When they’re at the edge of his bed, he pushes Kuroo’s pants down, and pulls off his shirt for good measure, eyeing his tattoo. Apparently that doesn’t seem fair to Kuroo, because he yanks open the fastenings on Tooru’s pants as well and knocks him back onto the bed as he’s pulling them off.

Kuroo is on him, pushing his legs apart and trailing his hand around Tooru’s ass, up his thigh, hooking his legs around his own back. He lowers his hips and grinds his cock against Tooru’s and they both gasp into the kiss. Kuroo’s hand is still curled around the back of his knee, pressing into the smooth skin. Tooru tightens his legs and moves back against him. “God, I want you so bad right now,” he murmurs as Kuroo moves over to kiss under his ear.

“The feeling’s mutual,” Kuroo mumbles back against his skin. He’s kissing down his body—his neck, his collarbone, moving across his chest. The friction between them goes as he moves back to scrape his teeth along Tooru’s belly, skirts down to suck briefly at his hip as Tooru’s cock brushes his cheek desperately. He moans and rolls his hips.

Kuroo keeps moving down, putting both hands on his thighs, sliding along them. “I love your legs,” Kuroo says quietly, mouthing gently across them.

“Then fuck them,” Tooru replies breathlessly, rubbing along Kuroo’s side with his calf.

He looks up and grins. “You keep reading into all my fantasies.”

“It would make my job easier if you’d just tell me what they were instead of dropping all these hints,” Tooru complains.

“Turn over.”

He does while Kuroo casts around his room for the lube. He eventually finds it sitting on the desk, which is where Tooru normally keeps it, since he figures he has no reason to hide it, and after all they just used it when they were in here on Thursday.

Tooru rolls his hips back and stretches out his arms before pulling them up under him as Kuroo pops the cap and slicks himself up. He makes sure his thighs are as tight together as he can get them, and feels shivers go through him when Kuroo’s hand curves around his hip.

“You ready?” he asks.

“Are _you_ ready?” Tooru counters, rolling back.

Kuroo laughs, sounding nervous somehow. As if Tooru discovering one of his kinks is somehow embarrassing. But he moves forward and Tooru can feel the tip of his cock pressing against his thigh. He presses in fairly easily thanks to the lube, but pauses briefly.

“You don’t have to stop, you know. It doesn’t hurt,” Tooru says a little patronizingly.

“Stop being so impatient! I’m just reveling is all. It feels really good.”

Tooru shifts back, and Kuroo slaps his hip. “Ooh!” he gasps, wriggling. “You can do that again if you want. Harder though.”

Kuroo pulls back and hits him on the ass, harder. Tooru moans. One day he wants to be bent over Kuroo’s lap, having his fingers buried deep in him with pink, stinging cheeks. But maybe not today.

Kuroo finally moves, in slow, languid thrusts. The sensation is different, and if Tooru’s honest he’s never been fucked like this before. This alone won’t get him off, but the way Kuroo softly moans and rubs his thumbs against the back of his hips helps. He leans down on one shoulder, face pressed into the sheets, and softly strokes himself.

“Fuck, Oikawa, you feel so good,” Kuroo gasps. He starts thrusting faster, moving his hands over more of Tooru’s body. Tooru is kind of enjoying the slickness between his thighs, the lewd sounds it makes; it’s still sex. Just sex, all he ever wanted from Kuroo. He’s so glad he barged into his room a few weeks ago. He’s so glad he read that newspaper. He’s so glad his old roommate was a stupid tool.

After a bit, Kuroo’s breathing out more little moans, thrusting erratically, and he finally comes, messing up Tooru’s thighs even more. Tooru makes sure to keep his thighs tight, groans out a soft, “Oh, Kuroo-chan…” like he knows Kuroo likes.

Kuroo pulls back off him and sits on the bed, leaning back on his hands and panting slightly. Tooru moves over to him, crawling into his lap, and strokes himself as he tugs Kuroo’s hair back and sucks at his jaw. A hand moves around to squeeze his ass, move down his messy thigh.

They stay like that for only a moment, and then he’s pushed back down onto his bed, and Kuroo’s lips are sinking over his hot, hard cock. “ _Yes_ ,” he whispers, instantly pushing his hands into Kuroo’s ridiculous hair. He’s already pretty close, but this isn’t the first (nor will it be the last) time Kuroo sucks his cock.

Kuroo sinks down low over him, twisting and working his tongue around him, slicking him up nice and wet. Tooru cants his hips upward even as Kuroo’s lips are pressing against the hair at his base, which is fine because it means if he was going to choke, he would have done it by now, but he doesn’t. He moans wantonly as Kuroo lets him fuck his mouth, as his nails scrape lightly down his sides, until he comes hard and Kuroo swallows around him.

They curl around each other, and Tooru just barely manages to disentangle himself from Kuroo enough to clean off a little a few minutes later before falling asleep.

**XXX**

“You should visit me at work.”

Tooru is sprawled across the couch, not really focusing on his homework, because this idea has been lingering around his mind for a while. He’s not sure why he hasn’t asked sooner. He’s definitely not embarrassed; it’s not as if Kuroo would see any more of him than he sees on a regular Wednesday. He chalks it up to thinking maybe Kuroo’s been too busy for it, but both their midterms are done now.

Kuroo turns around from where he’s seated at the table and looks at him. “I didn’t think you’d want me to.”

Tooru sinks down deeper, letting his notebook fall onto the floor and his pencil get lost in the couch, and snorts. “Why wouldn’t I want you to?”

“I don’t know, I thought maybe it’d be an invasion of privacy or something.”

He snorts again.

“Well, clearly I was wrong. When do you want me to come?”

Tooru sits up, stretching forward over his knees and grabbing his toes. It’s an unnecessary show of how flexible he is, especially since it sounds like Kuroo’s already willing to come, but if anything he’s getting a good stretch out of it. “How about tonight?”

Kuroo shrugs. “Sure.”

“Excellent! Let me just get something.” Tooru shoots off the couch and into his room, digging into his cash stash. He comes back and presents a note to Kuroo.

“This is 10,000 yen,” he says, looking at it skeptically.

Tooru rolls his eyes. “I know that. You’re going to need it. Unless you just…wanted to watch from afar.”

Kuroo’s raises his eyebrows. “You’re giving me your own money to give to you to get a lap dance?”

“You can’t afford me.”

Kuroo rolls his eyes and scoffs. “I’m not that broke, Mr. High Roller.”

Tooru huffs. “Fine. It’s weird if you pay me, considering we’re already fucking on a regular basis. But you can pay the entry fee if it makes you feel better.”

He takes the note. “Deal.”

**XXX**

Tooru told him to come at 12:30, since he gets off at 1 and he wants to walk back with him. He spends the whole span of time of his shift until then in an increasing state of impatience anyway. He earns amazing tips though, for how well he dances. Call it inspiration, or maybe lust. He’s eager to show off his skills, apparently not just to Kuroo. But he’s just getting warmed up.

He shows up a little late, but Tooru didn’t exactly expect him to be on time, not that it doesn’t mean he’s not a little annoyed. Being fashionably late is his job.

Kuroo takes a seat in the back, perhaps waiting to be noticed. Tooru notices him immediately, but pretends not to, even though he’s not particularly busy right now and he’s supposed to attend to new customers since Suga is here with him. They have some cute girls they’ve been flirting with, and he’s not eager to leave them just yet, since girls don’t come in as often as men here.

“Suga-chan,” Tooru whispers conspiratorially, “He’s here.”

“Who’s here?” Ai asks, looking around. She goes to his and Kuroo’s school, along with Meiko. Their friend Yumi is visiting from their hometown.

“Oooh, your roommate?” Tooru had told Suga before their shift started that he had invited Kuroo. “Where?”

“Don’t all look at once, but he’s in the corner over there. The guy with the funny hair and the tattoo on his wrist.”

It’s easy to see Kuroo from where they’re sitting, but if four people suddenly made eye contact with him, that would ruin his façade.

“Wow! He’s hot,” Yumi says appreciatively.

Ai and Meiko nod in agreement.

“Ladies! I said not all at once.” He bops Meiko lightly on the nose and she giggles.

Suga takes the chance to slide his eyes over. “She’s right with the ‘wow’ though. Your description didn’t do him justice.”

“I’m pretty sure I only described his dick,” Tooru muses, putting his finger to his chin thoughtfully. Meiko blushes and giggles quietly.

“That’s kind of what I meant, Tooru,” Suga replies lightly. “You should go over there before Hinata jumps him.”

“Oh, that’s right. He’s Hina-chan’s type isn’t he? Tall, dark, and handsome.” He leans back, putting his head in Ai’s lap and raises his leg thoughtfully, bending it at the knee and pulling it towards his stomach, aware that Kuroo is probably watching him.

“Tooru, you’re leaving us?” Ai pouts.

“I’m sorry my dear, I promised.” He pats her lightly on the cheek and swings his legs down, planting his feet on the floor. “Anyway, I leave you in good hands. Suga-chan will take care of you.”

“That’s right! Don’t forget about me.” Suga winks at Yumi. She covers her mouth with her hand and giggles.

He waves to them and turns around towards Kuroo. They make eye contact and hold it as Tooru walks over to him, slowly, tilting his hips sensually. Kuroo’s wearing a subtle smile that complements Tooru’s.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” Tooru bats his eyes and sways from side to side. He turns around slowly, moving his feet and running his hands up his stomach and chest, pushing them up into his hair by the time he’s facing him.

“You look good.”

“Thank you, stranger, but it’s in the job description.” But he does look good. He’s all oiled up, his skin sparkling with glitter, wearing nothing but a tiny pair of black shorts that cut off halfway up his ass and sit low on his hips.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve never been to a place like this before so I don’t really know what to do.”

Tooru laughs. “Do you have something for me?”

He flicks the wrist of his right arm—the one with the tattoo on it—and reveals the bill, which he’s folded into fourths. Tooru steps in and takes it from him, offering his other hand to Kuroo. He takes it. “This way,” Tooru says softly.

He leads him across the lounge to the private rooms. He opens the door and ushers Kuroo in.

“Sit down. I have to go change.”

Kuroo doesn’t sit, turns to him and looks confused. “Change?”

“This is a strip club, Kuroo-chan. This doesn’t offer much of a stripping challenge.” He gestures to his tiny shorts.

Kuroo rubs the back of his neck and nods. “Fair enough.” He heads into the room and Tooru shuts the door.

He heads into the back, winking or waving at any customers he sees on the way there. He’d already picked out what he was going to wear, based on what he’s guessing Kuroo likes—a loose, white, sleeveless crop top, short poofy white skirt, and strappy white heels. He’s so glad Suga is the same size shoe as him and was kind enough to let him borrow them.

Tooru arranges for his song and wanders back over to the room, buzzing with excitement. If nothing else, heels make him feel even more powerful and sexy than he usually does.

Kuroo’s eyes go wide when Tooru comes into the room. “I take back my skeptical comment from earlier. I’m glad you changed.”

Tooru winks at him. “Are you ready?”

“I’m not entirely sure, to be perfectly honest.”

“Too bad. It’s my money and I’m getting my worth out of it. Do you know the rules?”

He nods, looking unsure. “No touching, right?”

Tooru nods, smiling gently. “Make sure you stick to it or they’ll kick you out. Futacchi is watching.” He points up to the camera in the corner.

Kuroo doesn’t even look at it. “That’s kind of weird.”

Tooru shrugs. “It’s saved my ass more than once. Literally.”

“I’m not really complaining,” he says accommodatingly. “Go ahead, do your thing.”

Tooru looks up at the camera, pops his hip out and flashes a peace sign to it. The music starts after a few moments, and he directs his gaze back towards Kuroo. Right now, he’s position behind his own chair, so he steps out from it, dropping his feet slowly as he makes his way over to him. His shoes make little clicking noises on the wood, though they’re barely audible and not distracting. Kuroo sits with his legs spread apart and his curled in front of him on the chair, watching.

He reaches Kuroo’s chair and spins around, stepping his left leg out, then his right. He lifts his arms slowly, then brings them down over the back of his neck, down across his collarbone, his chest. Tooru bends forward, curling his long, slim fingers around his ankles, running them up his legs as he raises himself back up, and rolls his hips back. He’s smirking to himself because of the quiet little noise Kuroo made when he sees his white lacy panties.

When he moves back towards the other chair and turns around, moving his shoulders and hips in circles as he runs his hands over his body, he notices that Kuroo’s now clenching his hands together, and that he isn’t smiling. Which happens a lot, but usually not quite this fast. He’s incredibly pleased, and incredibly ready to wreck him completely. He’s also hungry for the amazing sex he knows they’re going to have after he gets off work.

Kuroo’s eyes are the only part of his body that’s moving. They stop on Tooru’s hands, which are pushing up the hem of his shirt, just teasing at first, but then he takes it lightly in his hands and pulls the thin material slowly up and off himself, dropping it on the floor. He moves his hands over his bare chest, pushes them down until they reach his inner thighs and pops them open.

Tooru lowers himself down onto the chair with his legs closed only so he can open them, close them, and then open them again wider. He lifts his pelvis off the chair and rolls it smoothly into the air, wishing he could grind against something (Kuroo), seeing from his white knuckles that Kuroo wants that too.

He figures he can give him a little break, so he stands back up, saunters back over, and circles around to the back of his chair. Kuroo doesn’t turn around, which is good; at least he’s picked up on the sense of how this works. Tooru lays his hands gently on his shoulders, ghosts down along his arms, following with his body so his cheek brushes Kuroo’s hair. He draws them back up, fingers catching on Kuroo’s sleeves and pulling them up slightly so he gets a glimpse of the other tattoo he loves.

Tooru circles around to the front of him again, offers a few more fluid movements before turning around and placing his hands on Kuroo’s thighs. He throws his head back so his hair is brushing Kuroo’s face and thrusts upward slowly. When he breaks away, he moves onto the floor, circling his hips again and offering another good view of the panties. He slides down, curving his back as his chest presses against the floor, lifting his ass high and dropping it again, nearly wild with imagining Kuroo fucking into him.

After a bit he gets up again, turns so Kuroo can see his face, and the slight bump under his skirt where he’s getting hard from this. He then pushes it down slowly, halfway down his thighs until it drops the rest of the way. His cock is straining against the panties, and his smile grows a little painful as he catches Kuroo staring.

“Oikawa—” he croaks out, voice gravelly, but Tooru interrupts him.

“Shh. No talking. Just watch.”

Kuroo breaks his own grasp and covers his mouth with his face, pulling at the skin. Tooru almost laughs; he’s going to give himself wrinkles like that. But he doesn’t, keeps his composure (or at least, appears to on the outside) and keeps dancing.

He presses in close to Kuroo, putting his hands on his knees this time, and slides his body up parallel to him. Kuroo keeps his hand pressed against his face, but his eyes still roam, this time landing on Tooru’s face. He backs off and gets back on the floor, on his back this time, opens his legs and runs his hands along his thighs, daring to press close enough to his cock that he can’t help but sigh a little. And then he hooks his thumbs under the edge of the panties and pulls them slowly off.

Kuroo blinks hard, like he’s trying not to look away. He drops his hand, finally, and grips the other with it again, squeezing hard. Tooru’s no longer sure what to make of this. He isn’t smiling anymore, but his own pants look like they’re trying to keep something in that wants to be free at this point too. What’s most likely, Tooru figures, is that he’s sexier than Kuroo anticipated he would be, and it’s overwhelming him. For such a good fuck, he sure is innocent at times.

When the song finally ends, he’s poised in front of Kuroo, balanced with his hands on the edge of the chair that’s available between his legs, with his own spread wide. Tooru doesn’t move other than tilting head to the side and raising his eyebrows slightly.

When Kuroo doesn’t say anything, he stands up. “Well?”

“I think I have to tell you something.”

“How beautiful and sexy I am?” Tooru pretends to flip his hair.

Kuroo sighs, which is pretty much the opposite of what he wants. “Something like that.”

His tone sets off some kind of flag deep inside Tooru, but he pushes it down. “It can wait until I’m off. Probably just ten minutes now.”

“I’m gonna head to the bathroom.” Kuroo stands and heads toward the door.

“Don’t let me stop you.”

He’s alone in the room. He picks up his clothes and stares down at the shoes Suga lent him, doesn’t realize for twenty seconds or so that he’s frowning.

**XXX**

Tooru’s shift ends, and he checks the main room and the bathroom for Kuroo and does not find him. He spends another ten minutes asking every stripper, the bartender, and even Futakuchi if they’ve seen Kuroo. On the last stop, he strikes.

“I think I saw him go outside,” Futakuchi says. “Are you okay? You looked kind of upset after that last dance.”

Tooru smiles brightly, despite the sense of anxiousness growing steadily in him. “I’m fine!”

“You should be, that was a really good one.” He pauses, waiting for Tooru to say something, but he’s distracted and doesn’t, so he continues. “Take care of yourself, Tooru. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Or anyone.”

“Futacchi, there’s no one you wouldn’t do,” Tooru points out, smiling more genuinely now.

Futakuchi holds up a finger as if he’s going to protest, but then drops it with a shrug. “Pretend I’m a person with standards, and then heed my advice.”

Tooru giggles and waves to him as he leaves.

He half thinks, getting paranoid as he is, that Kuroo might have left without him, but he finds him loitering outside, a couple meters away from the bouncer. He says goodnight to Asahi and then trots over to Kuroo.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Kuroo says back.

Circularity sure is something.

They walk in silence for a few minutes before Tooru gets up the courage to ask, “So, what were you going to tell me?”

Kuroo is quiet for another minute or so, and Tooru’s sense of dread grows to the point he thinks he has to confirm something’s wrong.

“Rude, Kuroo-chan! You’re making me worry. I’ll get wrinkles because of you,” he teases.

Kuroo sighs. “Sorry. I should have said this sooner. It’s harder now.”

“Just spit it out!” Tooru says in as cheery a voice as he can manage, which is pretty cheery. He’s nothing if not a good actor. “I can’t believe how much I have to push you to do things. It makes me feel like a bully.”

“I think I’m getting feelings for you.”

Kuroo continues, though. “I guess I figured you would want to know. I thought that might be…not in the terms of our agreement, as you once said.”

Tooru doesn’t remember ever saying that, but he doesn’t press it. Suddenly his anxiety is replaced with frustration, and his brows knit together, but he forces them apart when he turns back to Kuroo. “That’s silly, Kuroo-chan. You hardly know anything about me. All we do is fuck.”

Kuroo sighs. “I know. That’s why I said ‘I think.’ The sex makes it…more confusing. I told you, I’ve never done something like this before. I think part of the reason is I’m not cut out for it. I get attached to people.”

“It’s just sex. It was always just sex.” Tooru puffs out his cheeks, doing his best not to let his irritation show through his words. But this has happened before. And before, he’s taken chances, and it’s always turned into sorrys and never minds and excuses that Tooru doesn’t want. He doesn’t try to have relationships anymore. There’s one person in his life that he ever loved, and let love him, but it wasn’t the same kind of love. With how deep in it he was, he’d be surprised if he ever recovered from that. He made a promise to himself to stop trying with people who didn’t matter.

“I know it is, to you. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

Tooru is quiet for a moment, wallowing in his own misfortune. He had thought he had found someone who he could fuck in peace, without any of this extra ‘feelings’ nonsense. But he’s beginning to think no such person exists. They probably don’t. That would be his luck. “It’s fine!” he says brightly. “But I don’t think we should have sex anymore if that’s the case.”

“I agree.”

The rest of the walk back is silent and painful for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey........ After reading this, listen to the song Hologram by Katie Herzig :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... 11.5k later.... This definitely got away from me. I wanted to break it up into two chapters but the 5-6k mark didn't have any good breaking points...
> 
> So a lot of stuff happens! Hoo boy. It's been a very long week. I just started a new job in a different country and I should have gone to sleep an hour and a half ago but I've been on the VERGE of finishing this for like two weeks and I am Over It. So yes, I should have spent longer on this probably, but I didn't and I hope that's okay. 
> 
> I guess I'm not so into writing romantic stuff, which maybe is a surprise, but I'm not good at it irl, so I got a little impatient, haha. Still I'm pretty fond of this story. Thanks for reading! (This is the end).

“Wow, you look awful,” Hanamaki says when he opens the door for Tooru.

“Nice greeting, Makki-chan,” Tooru complains, scowling at him.

“Well I just mean, I guess you _are_ upset.” He moves aside so Tooru can come in and take off his shoes. “Flip flops, too. This must be a true crisis.”

“They’re designer, thank you,” Tooru sniffs, lifting his foot and flinging one at him. It hits him in the shin.

Hanamaki stoops to pick up the expensive sandal and tosses it back in the doorway. “Hey, if you want to fight, go back to Miyagi and fight Iwaizumi. I’d love to see him destroy you.”

“I can’t believe I came to you for consolation.” Tooru wanders over to their couch and flops face down on it. He can hear the shower running, which explains why Matsukawa isn’t here to pick on him too.

His friend pushes his legs until he lifts his calves and he can sit down. “So are you going to tell me what happened?”

Tooru rolls over and pulls his feet up to his body, feeling sulky. “He did…the stupid thing. That they always do. He says he has feelings for me. I’m so tired of this, Makki-chan.”

“It must be hard, being so popular.”

Tooru snorts derisively. “It’s not popularity. He even said he doesn’t know for sure. And that the sex was ‘confusing.’”

Hanamaki sighs, and is quiet for a minute. Then he takes on a more serious tone. “Oikawa… I’m not judging your lifestyle choices, so don’t think that’s what this is. But maybe you should stop with all the casual sex? It doesn’t seem to be doing anything for your happiness.”

Tooru spreads his knees apart to peer at him through them, and finding nothing helpful in his expression, closes them to look back at the ceiling. He’s vaguely aware of the sound of the shower stopping. “That’s not the problem. It’s just that no one else can do casual like I can do casual.”

“Maybe you _can’t_ do casual. Maybe you just think you can. I mean…have you ever considered that you just have commitment issues, and that you are actually…lonely?”

Tooru cringes at the second accusation, which makes him too anxious to confront, and handles the first, which is only slightly better. “Of course I have commitment issues! I committed to someone for years and years and it didn’t work out, so I don’t want to do that again.”

“Okay, but Iwaizumi is straight. Kuroo isn’t.”

Tooru sits up, anticipating having to make room for someone else on the couch whenever Matsukawa gets done putting on clothes. “I don’t want to commit to Kuroo-chan,” he says.

Hanamaki gives him a skeptical look. “Issei told me you looked really jealous when we were kissing.”

“I wasn’t jealous.” As soon as he says it, he’s pretty sure it’s not true. But that doesn’t really make sense. He had told Kuroo he didn’t know him, but the reverse was true too. How could he be interested in someone he doesn’t know? The only person he’s ever fallen for was his best friend, practically since birth. He’s never had any kind of connection anywhere close to that with anyone else. They’ve all come and gone without striking any chords in his heart.

“You looked really jealous,” Matsukawa says, choosing now to make his appearance. He plops down on the couch between them, toweling off his hair.

Tooru puts on his best scandalized face, doing his best to push questioning thoughts away. “Mattsun, not you too! I don’t have any interest in Kuroo-chan. Maybe I’m just territorial.”

They exchange a look. “Isn’t that the same thing?” Hanamaki wants to know.

“I don’t believe this,” Tooru whines.

“That much is clear. But maybe you should do some…I don’t know, _soul searching_ or something. Go on a road trip. Climb Mt. Fuji. Think about how obviously into Kuroo you are. Or aren’t, if that ends up being the case, but I kind of doubt that,” Matsukawa suggests, waving his hands around ridiculously to compliment his ridiculous suggestions.

The idea of getting away from Kuroo does kind of appeal to him. Whatever this is that’s happening, he doesn’t want to deal with it. But he can’t leave. “I don’t have a car,” he complains.

Hanamaki grins. “Fuji-san it is then. Take the train. Actually, can you do soul searching on a train? I think if you tried to climb Mt. Fuji you might, like, die in an hour.”

Unfair and untrue insults to his stamina aside, Tooru stares at them both, wishing he could have had it as easy as they did. Matsukawa, Hanamaki, Iwaizumi, and Tooru had all been together through all of high school (although he’s known Iwaizumi since they were three), and the two in front of him had gotten together smoothly after graduating, but he hadn’t had the same luck with Iwaizumi. He’s a little bitter about it, but they’re good friends, of course, and they’re right more often than not. Not that Tooru’s willing to accept that yet. He stands up. “You guys should buy me ice cream.” Masterful change of subject, in his own opinion.

Matsukawa frowns. “Buy your own ice cream. We’re not your parents.”

Tooru sticks his tongue out at him. “Mean!”

“I’ll buy you an ice cream if you buy me one,” Hanamaki says.

Tooru sticks out his hand to him, and he takes it. “Deal.”

**XXX**

For the most part, life at home is normal, except they don’t have sex. Still, that’s a pretty significant change, given how things were before.

Tooru still sees Kuroo frequently, and Kuroo acts pretty much the same. He cooks sometimes, he does his homework, he showers (alone). He even makes efforts at polite conversation, which Tooru obliges, but not for long, since he’s busy with the end of the term coming up. They’re both busy. Maybe this was a good time for this to happen after all, though he’s missing the stress relief of a good fuck.

Kuroo does seem to be spending more time with his friends though, at their apartments, not his and Tooru’s. Tooru notices, and he’s pretty sure Kuroo knows he’s noticed, but neither of them say anything about it. Tooru is vaguely aware that most people pull that whole ‘needing space’ thing after something like this happens, so he lets Kuroo have his space.

That doesn’t stop him from still wanting to be in it. He catches himself on several occasions, when Kuroo is around, looking at him. Running his eyes along his tattoos, over his neck where the last marks he left on his neck are quickly fading.

 _It was just sex._ This is his mantra. He hopes Kuroo figures that out soon.

**XXX**

Tooru comes up with his own solution to the Kuroo problem, when he’s at work on Thursday. The solution is called Imahara Shou, and he was in Tooru’s chem class their first year. They were lab partners, and Tooru always appreciated that he didn’t seem that upset when Tooru burned his eyebrows off (accidentally, of course).

Imahara is in his strip club. Tooru doesn’t recognize him at first, but he comes in at the end of his shift, alone, sits in the back, maybe looking a little nervous, and Tooru goes over to him out of obligation, but then— “Imahara?” he asks, suddenly dropping all his allure on the floor.

Imahara goes instantly red and stiff, and not in the usual way Tooru gets. “Oh my god, Oikawa. You...work here?”

Tooru looks around, but his manager isn’t around, so he sits down with enough space between himself and Imahara to put down one of his bigger textbooks. “Yeah, for the last two years.”

Imahara nods, runs his hands through his hair—black and short. “This is kind of weird. I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew here.”

“A lot of people from school come in,” Tooru explains. “It’s not weird. I won’t tell anyone, for sure.”

He nods again. “Thanks, that’s, uh.”

Tooru lets the silence still for a little bit, crosses his legs. He’s wearing heels again, bright blue ones with bows on the back of the heel. Imahara’s looking at them, pointedly, instead of at any other part of Tooru’s body. “You seem uncomfortable. Do you want me to get someone else?”

“No, no, that’s okay. I might just go.” He looks wistfully towards the door.

Tooru frowns slightly, only because Imahara isn’t watching him. “You shouldn’t go. I mean, you obviously came here to have a little fun. I can be fun. But so can anyone else.” Now he smiles.

Imahara takes in a deep breath. “It’s not you, it’s… I only recently realized I was gay. There was an incident with one of my friends. We got drunk and…some stuff happened. And I guess there was some other stuff. I don’t know, it’s been a long couple of months.” He sighs. “Sorry, that’s probably too much information.”

Tooru leans back with a hand on his knee, maybe trying to move away from casual and more towards sexy. “We’re not just here to dance and take our clothes off, you know. I have good conversations with people sometimes. It’s hard figuring all that out.”

Imahara just nods.

Tooru looks at him a little more carefully in the dim light. He thinks he has nice eyes, long eyelashes, shielded by thin, expressive eyebrows (now that they’ve grown back). He trails his gaze down, over Imahara’s shoulders neck and shoulders. He’s wearing a jacket even though it’s warm in here, but he thinks they look nice, and he knows he’s seen him in lighter clothing before and remembers them being strong and tan. “Do you want do something?”

He replies quickly this time. “What kind of something?”

“Well, if you’re uncomfortable out here—and it is a little overwhelming if you’re new, we could go into a back room and I could dance for you. Or I could get someone else.” He won’t tell him about the cameras, he decides.

“I don’t really have any cash. I didn’t think that far ahead.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I guess I wasn’t thinking about it at all.”

Tooru waves a hand and gives a warm smile. “Don’t worry about the money, it’s on me.”

Imahara smiles for the first time, something with teeth that’s a little crooked, but pretty cute. He seems to loosen up a little bit. “Wow, really?”

“Consider it penance for burning off your eyebrows,” Tooru says brightly, standing up and taking him by the hand to pull him towards the back rooms.

**XXX**

Tooru invites Imahara to come back home with him, and Imahara accepts. Once they’re inside, Tooru checks the shoes by the door to see if Kuroo’s are there. They aren’t, and that wouldn’t necessarily have stopped him, but he’s glad Kuroo isn’t home. He feels like it _would_ be a little mean to fuck someone else and have him have to listen to it. He vaguely thinks he should have checked before bringing someone back, but he’s not here, so in the end it doesn’t matter.

He take Imahara’s hand again and guides him to his bedroom, pulling him forward until he falls down onto the bed and giggles. Tooru straddles his hips and takes his face in his hands, kissing him gently at first, then harder. Imahara opens his mouth immediately and slips his tongue between Tooru’s lips. Tooru bites it, maybe a little harder than he should with someone he essentially just met, but he doesn’t get any complaints.

They continue to kiss as Tooru works at the buckle of Imahara’s belt, then the button and zipper of his jeans. He rubs his hand over Imahara’s underwear, urging him to hardness. Imahara starts moaning quietly into his mouth, and Tooru smirks against his lips. Maybe Imahara can tell he’s being smug, because he gets his lip bitten, but it’s not as if he particularly minds. He moans back and tongues across the rough spot inside his mouth before slipping his tongue back into Imahara’s.

When he feels hard enough, Tooru slips his hand under the waistband of Imahara’s underwear and takes hold of him. He pumps slowly, teasing, earning what sounds like a pained moan as Imahara breaks away from the kiss. “Faster,” he demands, bucking up into his hand.

“Shh, I know what I’m doing,” Tooru whispers back, patting his cheek lightly.

He groans, more out of frustration than pleasure, so Tooru huffs and speeds up a little. He busies himself with Imahara’s neck, biting and sucking at the skin. Imahara is rocking up into his hand urgently, making a little bit of a mess as his precum gets on their clothes, but it’s nothing Tooru isn’t used to cleaning up. Imahara’s hands, previously clutched at his t-shirt, move down and squeeze his ass, and he hums.

This is nice. Imahara is definitely attractive, and he’s got a nice enough cock, though it’s not as big as—well, he doesn’t want to go there. He’s been actively avoiding going ‘there’ throughout this whole experience, but that’s gotten harder since they got back and there are memories of them fucking on every surface in this apartment. Particularly this bed, which was the last place they did it before they stopped a week ago.

It’s hard not to remember. It’s hard not to call this anything other than ‘nice.’ But that just means he’ll have to try harder.

He tightens his grip around Imahara’s dick and smooths over the moisture at the head with his palm, smearing it over the rest of the shaft so stroking him will be easier. Imahara squeezes his ass again, and he moans, mostly for effect, partially out of a desire to indulge in that ‘fake it till you make it’ business. He’s aware of the dull ache in his pants, his cock straining to be free and to be touched. He can’t wait until it’s his turn.

Imahara comes with a low, heavy moan, thrusting up hard into Tooru’s firm strokes and whispers of his name into his ear. When he drops his hands and leans back on the bed, Tooru climbs off him and takes the opportunity to grab a few tissues and clean off his hand. He pulls his shirt off and throws it in the laundry, then gets back on the bed, allowing himself to rub at the front of his pants as he waits for Imahara to catch his breath.

He doesn’t say anything, just lies there and breathes hard through his mouth with an arm flung over his eyes.

Tooru waits for two minutes, _two full minutes,_ trying to ignore his growing impatience and the idea that he might have been forgotten, before speaking. “Hey, are you asleep?”

Imahara pulls in a deep breath, sits up and fixes his pants. “Nope. Sorry, I’ll get out of your hair now,” he says.

Tooru sits up too, wearing a bewildered expression that not even his natural compulsion to act can hide. “Um, sorry, what?”

“Well, it’s late, and I’m sure you wanted to go to sleep, so.” He stands up.

“No, sleep isn’t exactly what I had in mind for my next activity,” Tooru replies, hardly believing what’s happening.

Imahara turns, looking as bewildered as Tooru feels. “Uh, what?”

He feels his eyebrows knit together and his mouth pull down into a frown. He’s not even hard anymore, but this is a matter of principle. “Why do you think I brought you back here?” he asks impatiently.

“Well, I thought you were going to blow me, but.” He shrugs.

Tooru has progressed from ‘this is nice’ to ‘this is weird’ to ‘this is pissing me off’ in the span of three minutes. “I think you’re going to have to explain what’s happening to me here, because clearly I’m missing something.”

“You’re…”

“I’m _what?_ ”

“…A stripper?” he finishes.

It clicks into place with a heavy thud, and Tooru stands up, using the five centimeters he has over Imahara (without heels, even) to his advantage. “Yes, I am a stripper. I’m not an escort.” Tooru doesn’t have anything against escorts. He’s had friends who were escorts, and he respects them, but he has had options that most of them didn’t, and he is not ready to be taken advantage of like they are. “You didn’t pay me. For anything I did tonight. I did something nice for you, and I kind of expected reciprocation. It wasn’t my _job_ to get you off. I did it because—” Because. There was a because, but that’s in the place he doesn’t want to visit right now. “Never mind, just get out.”

Imahara is scowling at him now, but Tooru just shoos him until he turns around and leaves. He slams the door, and Tooru considers yelling after him that he has cum on his shirt, but he feels too disgusted to even speak.

It’s not even Imahara he’s disgusted with, it’s himself.

Tooru showers to rid himself of the whole experience, pulls on his oldest, softest pajamas, and cuddles up with himself and his favorite blanket to watch UFO Search. It’s really late, but he doesn’t care. He needs something to do to distract himself from what he doesn’t want to think about. All of the things he doesn’t want to think about. The list keeps growing.

The first and largest item of that list comes back at about 2:30 AM, opening the door quietly so as not to wake him, even though he’s not asleep.

“You’re still up,” Kuroo says, sounding surprised. “Don’t you have class in the morning?”

“Don’t you?” Tooru says back with a ruder tone than he meant.

Kuroo just stands in the doorway. “Yeah…? I guess I’m a hypocrite. You got me.”

Tooru sighs and fumbles around in his blanket for the remote so he can turn down the TV. He burrows deeper into his blankets. “Sorry for snapping,” he mumbles.

“It’s okay.” He walks over to the couch, picks up the water he left there before going wherever he went, and sips it, catching sight of the two empty milk bread wrappers, half eaten-chocolate bar, and two empty beers on the coffee table. “Are you okay?”

Tooru sniffs, subtly hiding more of his face with the blanket. “No comment.”

“Something happened?”

“Yes.” Kuroo looks at him, and apparently Tooru is still being snippy because he sighs dramatically and says something that he instantly regrets. “Are you my mom, Kuroo-chan?” The parallel hits him in the chest like an arrow, and he wants to kick himself in the stomach for a matching set. It doesn’t even have the same teasing lilt behind it; they don’t have that kind of relationship, and he’s not in that kind of mood, and everything about it is wrong, but it still hurts, and he knows exactly why.

Kuroo sets down his water and turns away. “Forget I asked. I’m going to bed.”

After a minute, Tooru turns his show back up, needing a distraction more than ever.

**XXX**

**Iwa-chan** **☆** ***:.** **｡** **. o(** **≧** **▽≦** **)o .** **｡** **.:*** **☆:** _Oi_

 **Iwa-chan** **☆** ***:.** **｡** **. o(** **≧** **▽≦** **)o .** **｡** **.:*** **☆:** _what have you been doing? I haven’t heard your annoying voice or gotten an emoticon riddled text in a week_

 **Iwa-chan** **☆** ***:.** **｡** **. o(** **≧** **▽≦** **)o .** **｡** **.:*** **☆:** _did something happen_

Tooru stares at the messages, wondering how to respond, or if he’s even going to. For as long as they’ve known each other, Iwaizumi has never really been the one to bring up feelings first. Although, he does sometimes express concern, albeit in an awkward and clumsy way.

Tooru’s feelings are kind of a mess right now, though, and the idea of talking to the boy he was formerly in love with both appeals to and frightens him. He’s already started to consider that Hanamaki and Matsukawa might have been right, and he doesn’t know what will happen if he talks to Iwaizumi about Kuroo.

Tooru thinks about it more, and he feels like he should have known better. When he first started to consider fucking Imahara, he thought about how he’d known him from his classes, how he’d explained coming into his sexuality, and he seemed nice enough. Maybe Tooru even felt empathy with him, because of how rough his own discovering of his sexuality had been. Clearly he misjudged, because Imahara’s ambivalent opinion towards his own eyebrows and ability to titrate a solution correctly in under ten minutes didn’t make him a good lover. Maybe it’s just because he only recently discovered his sexuality (maybe he was a virgin? Had never been with a man? Isn’t actually gay???), but what seems most likely to Tooru is just that he is just secretly an asshole.

It’s not as if Tooru hasn’t had plenty of those, but somehow after the whole Kuroo thing it feels worse. Maybe because he knows he was trying to distract himself, and Imahara only made him miss Kuroo.

His moping is interrupted by his Skype going off. “Fuck,” he mutters, not realizing he had been signed in. It’s Iwaizumi.

If he doesn’t answer it, Iwaizumi will definitely know something is wrong. He might even call his mom, and Tooru doesn’t want to explain why he’s upset to her. She might pass out.

He accepts the call without his webcam on at first, so he can fix his reflection in his hair in his phone’s camera, make sure the circles under his eyes aren’t too dark.

“What the hell are you ignoring me for?” Iwaizumi demands gruffly. “Stop preening and turn your camera on.” Iwaizumi really knows him too well.

Tooru frowns and turns his camera on. He was done anyway. He smiles brightly. “Ya-ho, Iwa-chan!” he waves. “I wasn’t ignoring you, I was just making lunch.”

Iwaizumi grunts, as if deciding whether or not he believes him, and whether or not he wants to press it if he doesn’t. “How’s your roommate?” he decides on.

Damn him. He really didn’t waste any time. He knows about Kuroo, knows about their agreement, but doesn’t necessarily know that that agreement has been abolished. But he also knows Tooru’s history with the people he sleeps with, so maybe he’s making an assumption. “Kuroo-chan’s fine. I think he’s doing something with his friends right now.”

Iwaizumi just stares at him, face fixed with his eyebrows drawn slightly together and the corners of his mouth turned down.

Tooru sets his elbow on the desk and leans his cheek into his hand. “Is something wrong? You’re even less eloquent than usual.”

“You’re doing that shitty smile you do when you’re upset about something, and I feel like you’re lying to me.” He sighs, frustrated. “Dammit, Trashykawa, you know I suck at this, so stop making it hard for me. I’m trying to be a good friend but I don’t know what’s going on with you anymore. You’ve been weird for months.”

Months? Impossible. It’s been a week.

Still, Tooru drops his smile. These days, even with all the distance between them and the time they’ve spent apart, he can only keep it up around Iwaizumi for so long when something is actually bothering him. Maybe it’s just because he’s getting old. “Iwa-chaaaaaaaaaan,” he whines out pathetically. “When did you get smart enough to read minds?”

Iwaizumi scowls at him through the computer. “I know you, you ass.”

Tooru sticks his tongue out at him. “I bet Makki-chan told you.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened or not?” Masterful avoidance of the subject. He must have picked that up from Tooru.

“It’s a sex thing. Are you sure you want to know?”

Iwaizumi leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “No, but tell me anyway. Just leave out the…details.”

Tooru sighs. “He told me he thought he was getting feelings for me, same old thing as always.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s—” Tooru hums in thought. A few days ago, he would have instantly said yes. Now he’s not so sure. Kuroo has been on his mind more often than not, and as reluctant as he is to admit it, the thoughts haven’t always been about sex. He keeps finding himself thinking about Kuroo smiling, laughing at things—things he’s said. Kuroo watching TV shows with him, sharing dinner with him when he’s made too much, making him coffee in the mornings, giving him pencils since he always loses his own, even though he will inevitably lose those too. He feels bad about what happened last night, and is even considering apologizing, but he hasn’t seen him today. “I don’t know,” he finishes.

Iwaizumi looks like he’s waiting for him to say something else.

He puts his head down on the desk and makes a noise of frustration. “I’m trying not to think about it but it wants to be thought about.”

“That’s probably a sign that you should stop avoiding it.”

Tooru sits up quickly, throwing his head back and groaning. “I know! It just… The last time…I actually considered I had feelings for someone… Well, you know.”

Iwaizumi grimaces, and quickly tries to hide his expression, but Tooru sees. “Sorry,” he says softly.

Tooru points sternly at him. “Stop that! Stop it right now! I told you it’s not your fault. I’m over it.” This is at least 92% true.

He throws his hands up. “I know! I still—never mind. Let’s talk about Kuroo. What do you…like about him?”

Tooru smirks with his lip caught on his teeth and raises his eyebrows.

“ _Besides that._ ”

“There hasn’t been a lot of other stuff, really. He’s nice, and pretty funny, but he’s also kind of goofy and weird.”

“Sounds perfect for you. You’re weird, and pretty goofy. Maybe he can teach you how to be funny.”

Tooru stares dully at him, and Iwaizumi just stares back stoically. Tooru watches him carefully, trying to determine if he’s joking or not. He doesn’t seem to be. Even if he’s slow to start conversations like this, he usually doesn’t mess around, so Tooru shouldn’t have expected anything other than honesty. “I’m starting to think that. Maybe not ‘perfect,’ but. Good. Better than what I’ve had.”

Iwaizumi isn’t frowning anymore. His face has softened to something more neutral, maybe with a bit of concern, but mostly earnest. “So what’s stopping you from telling him?”

Tooru drums his fingers against the desk softly without letting his nails tap against the wood. “I guess I want to be surer. And… I don’t know. He might have changed his mind about me by now.” He gives a small shrug, thinking about the way he acted last night.

Iwaizumi begins to look a little frustrated. “I wish I knew what to tell you but I don’t really have any experience with this,” he admits.

Tooru smiles brightly and waves his hand. “Don’t worry, Iwa-chan, I know you’re completely emotionally stunted and hopeless with feelings. I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Oikawa, I’m taking the next train to Tokyo to kick your ass.” He cracks his knuckles on screen.

Tooru winks at him. “Iwa-chan, when are you going to get a girlfriend, hmm? Soon you’re going to be old and wrinkly in addition to boring and ugly and then it’ll be too late for you.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “God, you sound like my mom.”

Tooru stares at him with a lazy smile on his face. Iwaizumi stares back, his eyebrows knit together again, and starts to gradually turn a little red.

“What the hell are you looking at me like that for?”

“You read my mind, now I’m reading yours. You like someone, don’t you? That girl from your study session who writes her ‘na’s with hearts?”

“I’m not talking to you about this.”

“So you admit it! You’re not escaping, Iwa-chan, you have to tell me!”

After some more badgering, and under the condition that Tooru does not try to help him with this at all, Iwaizumi confesses to maybe, possibly have taken a small interest in the girl with the cute handwriting. Tooru pulls details about her out of him slowly, painfully. Iwaizumi probably feels guilty admitting he likes someone that isn’t Tooru, but Tooru is genuinely excited for him and gives him advice despite 1) Iwaizumi specifically telling him not to, and 2) his own love life (past and present) being a complete mess.

They talk for a while about her, and then about life, and not once more about Kuroo. Even if some parts of his life are confusing and complicated, Iwaizumi is simple and relatively unchanging, and does genuinely care about him, although getting him to admit anything of the sort is an experience akin to getting a root canal. Or so Tooru imagines. His teeth are and always have been perfect.

After their Skype call ends, Tooru spins around in his desk chair for ten minutes, trying to inspire some courage in himself. He doesn’t really inspire anything except some slight nausea, but he piles up his homework on his textbook and carries it out to the table anyway to wait for Kuroo to come back.

He does half of one problem and fills the entire left margin of his homework with doodles of aliens in spaceships and the occasional beetle before the door opens to reveal his roommate. “Hi,” he greets, offering a smile that gets lost with Kuroo taking of his shoes.

“Sup,” Kuroo says back.

He looks like he’s about to head straight to his room, so Tooru grips his pencil hard in both hands and says, “Um—I wanted to…say I’m sorry. For yesterday. Well, this morning. I was rude, and you were being nice.”

Kuroo shrugs. “Your life is none of my business. I was overstepping,” he says.

Tooru is pursing his lips slightly. He forces himself to stop, assuming a friendlier expression. “I’m not the best at accepting help, but I appreciate your concern anyway. I don’t think you were overstepping.” He pauses slightly, or maybe the correct term is hesitates, even though he tries to keep his voice sure. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Tooru watches him carefully. “Yeah, of course.” The way he says it sounds like he only just decided that now.

This won’t do at all. If they’re not friends, that just means he has to make them friends. That, he decided after talking to Iwaizumi, was going to be the first step in figuring this mess out. “Do you want to do homework with me? I work better if someone else is keeping me focused.”

He looks down the hall briefly, then back at Tooru. “Uh, yeah, sure. I have a lot of stuff to do this week. Let me just get my computer.”

First hurdle passed.

Kuroo is better at focusing than he is, and Tooru keeps thinking of bringing up conversation, but he doesn’t want to break his concentration. After a bit, though, he realizes the atmosphere of this is nice—just being in the presence of another person, the quiet white noise of Kuroo’s music through his headphones breaking the static silence between them. It doesn’t feel as tense as he would expect it to, which he takes to mean Kuroo’s not mad about him being rude.

He finds he keeps looking up from his own work every few minutes, watching Kuroo scribble something down in his notebook, eyes getting lost in the design of the tattoo on his wrist. Or noticing the way his fingers disappear in the mess of his hair as he puzzles through whatever he’s trying to read, lips just barely moving as he silently repeats whatever’s on screen.

Tooru forces himself to stop looking. He told Kuroo he’d focus better with him there, but even if it seems like the opposite is true, he has to keep up appearances.

**XXX**

Tooru finds himself making more excuses to spend time with Kuroo over the last few weeks of the term. They study together, and the more it happens, the more Tooru is unable to restrain himself from talking to him, especially since he actually responds instead of telling him to focus on his homework like Iwaizumi used to do.

After a particularly stressful week for both of them, he suggest they watch _Gamera: Destroy All Planets_ one Friday. He’d actually found out Kuroo had never seen it earlier in the term, and had been meaning to find a time to show it to him, so he’s pleased when Kuroo agrees to watch it, since it’s one of his favorites.

He talks through a lot of it, sharing details he’s learned from watching all the extras on the DVD and things he’s seen on online forums he sometimes entertains. Kuroo lets him talk while trying to pay attention to what’s happening, seems engaged in both him and the movie. When it’s over, he says he liked it, and a warm feeling spreads through Tooru.

They do things with his friends, too. Tooru makes the invitations casual—“Hey, we’re getting coffee, do you want to come?”—but Matsukawa and Hanamaki tend to go off in their own little bubble and leave Kuroo and Tooru to theirs. Other times, Kuroo even invites him to hang out with Akaashi and Kenma and a few others.

They have good conversations. Tooru learns more about him, only then fully realizing how little he knew before. He plays guitar, but didn’t bring his up because he doesn’t want to bother the neighbors, but next year he’s getting a house with Bokuto and Akaashi and he’s going to bring it up there. According to himself, he can sort of dance—he gets better the drunker he is (Tooru doesn’t believe it for a second). He’s got an older sister who’s a semi-successful actor. Right now she’s in a romantic drama that Tooru’s actually seen a few episodes of.

Tooru talks about himself too. His own sister, his nephew, his mom, his dog, Coco, who is 14. Of course, he talks about Iwaizumi (lots of embarrassing stories, since he’s not here to punch him in the back of the head), and growing up in Miyagi. He also has a lot of experience living with different people since starting college, which he shares, along with how he eventually came to leave all of them. Most of them are funny, he thinks, and Kuroo seems to share the sentiment.

But the more they hang out, the more he starts to realize Kuroo is initiating less and less of their contact. It’s been like a bell curve, and now it’s dropping off steeply. Tooru always has to ask him to do something, and eventually the reciprocation slows to a stop. Tooru notices, and doesn’t know what to do, because the more he talks to him, the more he believes in the idea that his feeling aren’t just platonic, and they aren’t just about sex. While Kuroo seems to enjoy himself when they do talk, Tooru always senses something off about him, and he starts to think that not only has he gotten over whatever feelings he only ever might have had, but he is only indulging their friendship until Tooru moves out and they don’t have to see each other anymore.

So he starts to pull back too.

After all, the school year is done in two weeks. And after that, he’s moving out, and there’s a break. Next year, they might see each other once, twice, three times a year passing by each other on campus. So he throws himself into school and work and tries to ignore the fact that he completely missed his chance.

**XXX**

Finals finally end, and Tooru breathes a little. Matsukawa texts him something about wanting to celebrate, and he agrees. Matsukawa requests his place, saying that theirs is messy, and Tooru is slightly skeptical, given how tidy they usually are, especially compared to him, but he agrees anyway. He tells Kuroo he’s having people over, and after a moment of thought invites him to join, because it’s polite. He says to invite his friends too, but Kuroo says all the ones he would invite have already gone home since they had earlier finals.

More suspicious is that Hanamaki texts him half an hour late and tells them to start drinking without them. Tooru eyes the text hard and demands that they get their asses over soon, but against his better judgement, breaks into the beer anyway. They start a Godzilla movie on Tooru’s suggestion, hoping Hanamaki shows up and gets upset that they watched any of it without him.

And then his damn friends cancel. And they tell him to have fun with Kuroo. Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. (He knows exactly what it’s supposed to mean, despite having explained to them that that route dead-ended a week ago).

The whole ‘pushing down his feelings’ thing hasn’t gone very well. It started to feel like Iwaizumi all over again, as if he’d been rejected a second time instead of doing the rejection himself. But maybe it was more like mutual rejection, since Kuroo had started pulling away from him too.

Tooru regrets ever trying to get closer to him after Imahara. He doesn’t understand how he thought that would be a good idea, when Kuroo was probably already well on the way to scattering his own feelings for Tooru. They were on backwards-facing tracks that didn’t meet in the middle, but went on in either direction until they were too far apart to see each other.

But it’s their last night together, and if he misses this chance after years of running away from any feelings like this, he won’t be able to forgive himself.

When the movie ends, Kuroo looks like he’s about to fall asleep on the couch. Tooru watches the credits intently, holding his third empty beer bottle in both hands as his eyes glaze over the names rolling past.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” Kuroo mumbles. His eyes are shut and his elbow is stuck in the arm of the couch, with his head propped up by the same hand. His mouth is slightly open, and he looks a little ridiculous. And despite what he just said, he doesn’t move.

For a moment, Tooru almost chickens out. But he squeezes his hands tighter around the bottle and makes himself look at him. “Kuroo.”

Kuroo’s eyes flutter open. It’s almost completely dark in their apartment, with the only light coming from the TV on one side and the stars on the other. “Mm?”

“What’s been happening with us the last few weeks?” Not what he meant to say, but not necessarily the wrong direction.

Kuroo looks wholly thrown off by the question. “I wish I knew,” he says after almost half a minute.

“I was trying to be friends.”

Kuroo frowns slightly. Slightly enough to not look casual, just melancholy, regretful. “Why did you do that after I told you I might have feelings for you? It felt like you were just rubbing it in my face.”

Tooru sets the bottle down on the coffee table and turns on the couch, crossing his legs and gripping his shins instead now. “I was trying to figure out my own feelings, I guess. Maybe that was selfish.”

Kuroo stares at him for a moment, doing that same impassive face he does so often that Tooru wishes he knew how to break into. Tooru’s not the only one who can act, it seems. Kuroo just does it differently. “I guess it depends on what you decided.”

“What did you decide? You said at the time you weren’t sure.”

“I asked you first.”

Tooru’s shoulders jump slightly with a silent laugh, and he smiles briefly. “Mean, Kuroo-chan.”

Kuroo doesn’t indulge in his silliness, keeping his expression serious. “That’s not an answer.”

Tooru looks down at his hands for a few long seconds. He can feel Kuroo watching him, waiting, and he knows it’s not fair to keep this to himself any more. He looks up. “I think my first reaction was…wrong. I think I might like you after all.” He looks back down at his hands, frowning.

He waits, and feels his face and neck heating up, complexion tinted rosy under the blue light of the moon on one side and the faint glow of the TV screen on the other. He can hear him saying it in different was in his mind, all boiling down to, ‘Well, I changed my mind.’

The weight on the couch shifts as Kuroo moves towards him, settling right in front of him. Tooru doesn’t look up, even when he gently knocks his forehead against Tooru’s as he urges his hands loose from his legs, taking them in his own. “Hey.”

Tooru smiles weakly, not allowing himself to get overwhelmed by the happiness quietly daring to bubble up in him at the contact. “Hi.”

Kuroo draws his eyebrows down, scowling. “You completely suck, you know.”

Tooru doesn’t even have to act shocked, because he is. “What? Why?!” he wails, unable to resist squeezing Kuroo’s fingers.

“Because I was just getting to like you more and more every day and the whole time I thought you were just yanking me around. Thanks for saying something the day before we both move out, you asshole.”

Tooru frowns. It is a pretty unfortunate situation, and it is mostly his fault. “We can text? And we’ll be back next year.”

Kuroo smiles slightly. “Do you want to come home with me for a week over the break? My mom would be so excited. You could stay in my sister’s room.”

“You want me to meet your parents already?” Tooru smirks and cocks his head to the side.

“Shut up. Sleep on it and tell me in the morning.”

He yawns as if on cue. “Mm. Okay.” But he already knows what he’s going to say.

They sleepily, half carry each other to their rooms, still holding hands until they break away in the hallway. Tooru’s heart is fluttering so bad, he’s not even sure if he’ll be able to sleep. He changes into his pajamas and crawls into bed, smiling against his pillow.

His bed feels cold and too big. After ten minutes, he gets up and goes down the hall, opening the door to Kuroo’s room. “I couldn’t sleep,” Tooru says when Kuroo peers groggily at him from beneath the covers. He throws them open and scoots against the wall so Tooru can slip into bed next to him.

Kuroo’s puts his arm around him, running his fingers along Tooru’s back through his t-shirt for a minute or so before he gets too tired to move. Tooru curls an arm back around Kuroo’s waist and breathes in the scent of his laundry detergent on his shirt, something probably marketed as ‘Mountain Fresh’ or some other such nonsense, but it’s nice. He can’t remember the last time he was close to someone like this without being at least partially naked and sweaty. This definitely has its perks, he thinks, as he falls into a sound sleep.

**XXX**

There’s a surprise waiting for them at Kuroo’s home. The surprise is Kuroo’s grandma, who is occupying Kuroo’s sister’s room. Tooru doesn’t get why this is such a big deal, since he didn’t want to sleep without Kuroo anyway, but he explains that she’s not exactly the most progressive person and it starts to make more sense. And then he starts to get annoyed that he can’t act coupley with him in his house, since he was looking forward to making up for the lost time they both spent pining and not saying anything to each other.

He still turns on the charm for Kuroo’s mom and his grandma, and they both love him. At one point Kuroo says he thinks his grandma likes Tooru more than she likes him. She certainly does keep complimenting him, from his manners to his hair. Usually whenever the latter comes up, she mentions that she thinks Kuroo should just cut his off since he doesn’t take care of it. She calls his hairstyle ridiculous more than once, and once as they’re having dinner, Tooru makes a point to mention he thinks it grows on you, and after a bit of thought she decides she just hasn’t seen enough of it to make a solid decision. She says she’ll have to visit more, and Kuroo pokes him in the ribs as subtly as he can without his family noticing.

They are more or less forced to hang out around the house for a couple of days so Kuroo can visit with his grandma while she’s here, which seems to make them both fidgety. She has them watch a bunch of old movies and shows with her and tells stories about when she and Kuroo’s grandfather were younger. The stories are interesting and sometimes funny, but Tooru starts to get an even more intense craving for actually _starting_ their relationship, and slightly guiltily abandons Kuroo at times to see if his mom needs any help cooking or cleaning, anything. She usually does, gets even more charmed.

On the third day of their break, Kuroo begs his mom to distract his grandma so he can hang out with Tooru. Tooru wakes up because he hears them arguing and feels bad, especially since he’d been hoping for the same thing, but the fight doesn’t last very long, and it seems like Kuroo wins. When they leave for whatever surprise Kuroo has planned, his mom doesn’t even seem upset with him, so Tooru feels a bit better about leaving them.

The surprise is Disneyland. Tooru almost screams, but doesn’t, just hugs Kuroo and lifts him off the ground before pulling him towards the entrance (well, the long line of people waiting to buy tickets). Even after living in Tokyo for three years, he’s somehow never been, and he thinks he told Kuroo that at some point. He remembered.

They spend about thirteen hours there, mostly waiting in lines, but Tooru is excited the whole time anyway. They ride Space Mountain four times. It’s his favorite. There aren’t nearly enough aliens, but it goes fast and it’s dark and cool and he can imagine little green people in between the blinking stars as they zoom past.

When it gets dark they wander the park looking for a place to watch the fireworks. They find a bench with relatively few people around and claim only half of it, sitting close so their thighs and shoulders touch and twining their fingers together as their hands rest on Kuroo’s leg. He’s exhausted from all the walking around in the sun and standing and not drinking that much water because of how expensive it was and screaming way too loud at the rides, but it’s a comfortable kind of tired that leaves him feeling pleasantly warm and happy.

The next day Kuroo’s grandma leaves in the afternoon. The rest of their time with her is easier when they know they only have a little while left to deal with her. Tooru feels like this is a rude thing to think, but at least he doesn’t say it out loud. He’s pretty tired from yesterday, so he loses all the card games they play together since he’s mostly trying to focus on not melting into the couch. When she leaves, she tells Tooru he’s much nicer than Kuroo’s other friends. Kuroo tells him later that she means Bokuto.

The next day Bokuto comes back and he and Akaashi invite Tooru and Kuroo to go to the beach with them, so they do. Bokuto starts talking to Tooru as soon as he sees him, and Tooru has to laugh because no one, including Bokuto himself, gets the chance to introduce them to each other. It takes until they get into the car and have been driving for ten minutes for Tooru to say, “By the way, I’m Oikawa.” To which Bokuto replies, “Oh, yeah, I know!” Kuroo had told him everything.

Bokuto wants to be buried in the sand. Kuroo is the only one who immediately wants to help, and Tooru is convinced shortly after, but Akaashi doesn’t want to. They try to tell Bokuto he’s going to be itchy and uncomfortable, but Bokuto doesn’t listen, so they do it. When Akaashi moves their towels out of the way of the incoming tide, Bokuto admits to being itchy, and Tooru says he thinks they picked a spot too close to the surf, so he breaks out of the sand and shakes it onto them instead. They all go in to try to get it off themselves, even though the water is really cold. Akaashi comes too this time.

They dry off in the sun, play Frisbee, dig into the cooler for sodas, nap and talk and swim again after they dry off and forget the freezing bite of the ocean. Kuroo plays guitar for a while; he brought his acoustic one, which Tooru had admired sitting next to the electric one in his room. He’s good, really good, though he claims to be out of practice. Akaashi and Bokuto agree with him. Kuroo writes them all off, saying they have no musical experience and can’t judge.

Tooru likes Bokuto, and he likes how Kuroo acts around him. They both seem more animated, and they and Akaashi have a lot of good stories from high school shenanigans. Bokuto also has a lot to share about going to Australia. It’s interesting to hear about, although Tooru doesn’t think he’d appreciate all the creatures roaming around. Bokuto does show him pictures of the scenery on his phone, though, and it looks very nice. 

When it starts to get dark they put all their clothes back on and make a bonfire, curling up in blankets and sitting on their towels. Bokuto lays his head in Akaashi’s lap, closing his eyes against the flames as their fingers brush through his hair, and Kuroo sits behind Tooru with his chin resting on his shoulder and his arms around his stomach. It’s a completely different feeling from Disneyland, but with the same warm and happy sense. Although the warmth this time is not imagined from tiredness, but actually coming from the blankets, the fire, and Kuroo.

**XXX**

The night before Tooru is going to go back to Miyagi for the rest of summer break, he can’t fall asleep. He can’t fall asleep because there is something he wants and he’s not sure if it’s too soon to ask for it.

They haven’t talked about taking it slow or anything like that, but that’s pretty much what they’ve been doing. They haven’t done anything more than hold hands and kiss each other chastely on the shoulder, cheek, hand, whatever since the last time they had sex over a month ago.

It’s not that Tooru absolutely needs it, but he wants it. His only concern is that Kuroo wants to wait, for some reason. Maybe it’s like starting over, and he wants to take their relationship at a pace it would normally go if they hadn’t gone from acquaintances to fuck buddies so quickly. It has been kind of a wild ride, he supposes, because after that they pretty much became strangers, then friends, then something he doesn’t even know how to describe, and finally boyfriends.

It can’t hurt to ask, though. He’s not going to see him for another month or so after this.

“Kuroo,” he whispers into Kuroo’s hair, rubbing his palm across his arm.

“Mmhmm.” He’s got to still be half asleep. They got into bed half an hour ago, after all.

Tooru pushes his fingers under the sleeve of Kuroo’s shirt, running them over the tattoo, imagining he can feel the ridges of the lines on his skin that he’s practically memorized by now. “Do you want to have sex?”

“Mmhmm.”

Tooru frowns and bumps the back of his head with his own forehead. “Hey, wake up and actually listen to me.”

Kuroo shifts, and at first Tooru thinks he’s just pulling away into the far corner of the bed so he can go back to sleep, but he turns around and swings himself over him, hovering low over his body and pressing their lips together. Tooru makes a little noise and grips the back of Kuroo’s shirt, and gets almost instantly aroused just from kissing him again, from the anticipation of more. But that’s what happens when you don’t get any for a few weeks. Or at least, that’s what happens to him.

Their tongues soon find each other, warm and wet, making up for all the time they’ve been apart. Tooru moans again and Kuroo hums back against his lips, kissing him more insistently. He tastes vaguely minty, like toothpaste.

“We have to be quiet,” Kuroo whispers against the corner of his mouth. “I don’t want my mom to wake up.”

Tooru hums unhappily, tugging Kuroo’s shirt up. “I don’t wanna,” he whispers back.

“Oikawa,” Kuroo growls, nipping at the corner of his jaw. He lets him pull the shirt off and fling it off the bed.

“Mmm…” Tooru holds him to his neck, and he starts to suck at the skin there. He missed having little marks all across his skin, remembrances of Kuroo’s teeth, his mouth, his passion. “Hey, would you let me fuck you?”

He pulls back from Tooru’s neck and grins. “I can’t believe you’re only asking me that now.”

Tooru tugs gently at his hair, smirking. “Is that a yes?”

“Yeah. Bet I can be quieter than you.”

“ _Don’t_ challenge me. I could have you begging and screaming.”

Kuroo grinds his hips against Tooru’s. “Is that so? I’m looking forward to next time then.”

Tooru gives a light laugh and quirks his head to the side. “You ever sixty-nine before?”

“I tried once, but he was a lot shorter than me, so it was hard.”

“You be on top, I’m going to finger you at the same time.” He starts pulling the pillows up under his head.

“You’re not shy about anything, are you?” Kuroo asks as he pushes the bed covers off of them and starts taking off his pants. Tooru pushes his own down his legs and kicks them to the floor.

“I get naked in front of people for a living,” Tooru reminds him. “Why, am I embarrassing you?” He grins at the prospect.

“Not as much as you think you are.” Kuroo tosses him some lube that he pulled from a shoebox under his bed. How cute. Tooru’s mom would find it there.

“Liar,” Tooru whispers, catching the bottle. He nudges Kuroo’s legs apart a little more so he can get his cock in his mouth as he slicks up his fingers. He hears Kuroo suck in a breath, but after a second he feels warm heat around his own prick, Kuroo’s thick tongue rubbing along the top of his cock, smoothing over his slit. Tooru hums, pleased, and Kuroo groans back around him, and Tooru’s almost a little sorry that he wants to fuck Kuroo badly enough that they can’t just get off this way. Another time, maybe. He thinks with a thrill running through his heart, yes, there will be another time. Not for a while, but eventually. They’ll have to make this count.

His hand is slick with lube, and he drops the bottle into the tangled mess of his sheets and grips Kuroo’s ass, spreading him one handed as he rubs his fingers gently over Kuroo’s hole. Kuroo pushes back slightly, sinking down lower over Tooru’s cock, so Tooru slides his fingers up across his crack.

Kuroo pulls off of him. “Oikawa, come on.”

He pulls off too, nips at Kuroo’s thigh. “Did I say you could stop?” He rolls his hips up, squeezes Kuroo’s ass, earning a quiet groan which may just be a complaint, but he takes Tooru’s cock back into his mouth anyway.

Tooru moves his fingers back down to where Kuroo wants them, slicking up the skin without pressing in at all for a moment. And then he does, with two fingers, sliding up Kuroo’s cock in time with his fingers pushing into him. He sucks hard and twists them in deeper, and Kuroo chokes on his cock with the intensity of his moan. Tooru spreads his fingers as well as he can; Kuroo’s tight, it’s probably been a while since he last did this.

They’re both doing their best to keep quiet, and their moans are softer but more strangled. Tooru thinks to himself maybe this position was a bad idea if they didn’t want to wake anyone up, since they’re both pretty good (excellent, one might even say) at giving head. He pumps his fingers deep in and out of Kuroo’s ass as he swallows around his cock and Kuroo licks up the side of his, sucks on his head. It’s almost too much, after so long of nothing.

He adds at third finger, hoping to speed things up, because if he doesn’t he might just come right here. Kuroo’s sunk deep down over his cock, sucking hard, caught between rocking back into Tooru’s fingers or down into his throat. So he curls them down hard and the noise Kuroo makes is definitely not quiet. Tooru grins around his cock and squeezes his ass again.

“Goddamn it, stop, that’s good,” Kuroo breathes out after pulling off Tooru’s cock again. His pants ghost across his hot, wet skin and he shivers. “I’m gonna lose it if we keep going like this.”

Tooru pulls back too and pats him on the thigh and he shakily flops down on the bed next to him. Tooru runs a hand along his side from his hip up to his chest, thinking maybe they both need a minute to cool down. After a bit, Kuroo pulls him over and kisses him, fingers tight in his slightly messy hair. When he pulls back, Tooru licks his lips. “Condom?” he asks, turning his head as if he might find one lying on top of the mess they’ve thrown around over the last week.

Kuroo meets his eyes, looking the slightest bit hesitant. “Do you want…? I mean, I don’t want to be with anyone else. And I haven’t since the last time with you.”

Tooru’s heart flutters at the second sentence he utters, until he remembers his own tiny, unsatisfying fling. He feels dirty just thinking about it. “I have... I did… That night you came back late and asked me if something was wrong,” he admits quietly.

“Oh, well then maybe we sh—”

“It was just a hand job, and he didn’t do anything to me.”

Kuroo’s eyebrows knit together. “Anything? Like, he didn’t get you off?”

Tooru rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’ll tell you about it later if you really want. But is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he breathes back, pulling Tooru between his legs.

Tooru’s smirks as he pulls Kuroo’s knees over his shoulders and digs the bottle of lube out of the sheets to slick up his cock, but his heart is pounding. He definitely hasn’t been in this deep since Iwaizumi, and even though he will always love him, he can’t remember what it was like to be _in_ love with him. Kuroo’s here, and he wants him, and that’s something he doesn’t remember ever having before. Not like this.

He knows Kuroo is flexible enough, so he leans down to kiss him as he pushes in slowly, pressing his knees up by his shoulders. Kuroo takes in a deep breath and his nails dig into Tooru’s shoulders, so he slows down and kisses his cheeks gently.

“I’m okay,” Kuroo says, reading his mind apparently.

He gets all the way in with his face in Kuroo’s neck, sucking gently at his skin, and waits. His dick is throbbing, because he hasn’t done this in a long time either and he doesn’t even have a condom, so it’s almost overwhelming, but he’s determined to last.

Kuroo doesn’t make him wait. After a minute or so, he’s rolling against him. “Tooru,” he calls softly into his ear.

“Mm,” Tooru hums back, capturing his lips as he pulls out and thrusts back in, making them both moan. He gets up a steady pace, a bit slower than he might normally like because they have to try to not get too overstimulated, and they’re both already mostly there. Kuroo’s so hot and tight around him, and he missed kissing him so much, he’s losing his mind swallowing his voice down. They’re pressed close together, their skin slightly sticky with sweat and friction.

Kuroo hugs him close with one arm and slips his other hand between them to wrap around his cock. “Ahh, Tooru…” he gasps against Tooru’s lips, open-mouthed and panting. Their kissing has devolved into a half-hearted bite or slick of the tongue by now.

Tooru shivers hearing his name come out of Kuroo’s mouth. They’ve been calling each other by their first names for half a week, but in this context it’s different. “ _Tetsurou_.” He presses his forehead against Kuroo’s and shuts his eyes, thrusting harder.

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” Kuroo gasps, his hand working hard and fast to get him through his orgasm.

He’s even tighter now around Tooru, and Tooru is unravelling all at once. “Tetsurou, can I—? Please—”

“ _Yeah,_ come on—”

Tooru chokes on his moan and comes hard inside him, thrusting sloppily, his harsh breathing drying out his throat. His arms are shaking and he thinks he might have a cramp in his leg, but that’s the hardest he’s come in a long time, and he pulls out and collapses, boneless, next to Kuroo.

Somehow (Tooru doesn’t even realize when) their hands find each other. He feels a squeeze on his palm and returns it.

“My ass feels great,” Kuroo says.

Tooru breathes a laugh. “Are you joking?”

Kuroo shakes his head. “No, really, there’s nothing like a good hard fuck. You know?”

Tooru snorts. “You’re weird.” He squeezes his hand again and then releases it in favor of getting some tissues to clean them both up.

He sleeps better than he has in over a month.

**XXX**

The rest of summer vacation passes quickly and slowly at the same time. It’s fun, for sure, because he gets to see Iwaizumi and of course Matsukawa and Hanamaki are back too. The four of them loiter around their old haunts and spend too much money and get chastised by their parents for being lazy. So that’s nice.

He also texts Kuroo almost constantly throughout all of it, and is smacked on the back of the head by Iwaizumi on multiple occasions for almost walking into the street, poles, and other people. They all make fun of him for his “puppy dog love” and he halfheartedly swats at them with one hand, tapping at his phone with the other.

They also sext a lot. He wishes he could save the pictures (of both Kuroo and himself) but they both decide that’s not a good idea. Tooru learns to be careful checking his texts in public, since both of them seem to be insatiable and could get in the mood at any time.

Tooru procrastinates on finding new housing for most of break, and then the last week, when his mom starts hounding him to get on it, he’s looking at ads on line when the problem solves itself.

Kuroo’s been quiet for a few hours, which would strike Tooru as more unusual if it hadn’t been at the back of his mind as he was focusing on finding a place to live. And then around 2 PM he gets a text.

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** I have a weird question

Another two pop up almost immediately.

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** I know this is a pretty sudden thing to ask and you’ve probably made other arrangements

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** but

He waits for twenty seconds, expecting the reply to come quickly. He knows Kuroo can text fast. He picks up his phone to type something out when it buzzes again.

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** do you want to live with me next year?

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** And Akaashi and Bokuto?

Tooru stares at the screen of his phone for a second, feeling a smile creep up on his lips.

 **Me:** Were you nervous about asking me to live with you? 「(°ヘ°)  (◐ω◑ )

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** No

 **Me:** You liar (･∀･○) I saw you hesitate. Why would you be nervous （・∩・）？ Did you forget we lived together for like three months??? (*ﾟｰﾟ)ゞ

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** Because it’s different! Stop giving me shit and answer the question

 **Me:** What possible reason would I have to say no?? ( ｰ̀εｰ́ )

 **Tetsu-chan (●** **♡∀♡))** **ヾ** **☆*** **。:** Is that a yes

Tooru doesn’t even reply to that, feeling his smile growing wider and wider. He taps through to the call button. Kuroo picks up on the first ring. “Of course it’s a yes you insecure nerd.”

“Whatever, nerd.”

“I still don’t understand why you would think I would say no. How long have you been sitting on this?”

“A while. I don’t know,” he answers vaguely, which Tooru takes to mean he knows exactly. “Why does it matter?”

Tooru hums, tapping his fingers on his desk as he grins into his phone. But then the silence on the other end of the line goes a little tense and his smile droops. “Testurou.” He doesn’t answer. Tooru’s fingers still. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just worried about—Ugh. Okay… What happens if we get tired of each other?”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, then eventually decides that this is a conversation he wants to have lying down, not sitting in his shitty uncomfortable desk chair. So he moves over and carefully, gently lies on his stomach on the bed. “I’ve never been in a relationship before,” he says slowly. “Not a real one.”

“You told me.”

“So if you think I’m going to let you go so quickly, you’ve got another thing coming, Tetsu-chan!” He winks even though Kuroo can’t see him. “Even if you get tired of me I’m not letting you go. I’m moving in with you. You asked, and I do not allow take-backsies.”

“I won’t take it back.”

Tooru forces himself to drop his cheerful act. If this is going to work, and not end the way Kuroo’s just said it may, he knows he needs to be honest with him. He can’t put on a happy act like he’s used to doing with other people who don’t matter. “Do you really think that’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but it’s happened to others before us and it’ll happen to others after us.”

Tooru rolls over onto his back. “You used to be the romantic one, you know.”

“Hey, I still am.” His tone is a little bit lighter now, and also defensive.

“Prove it.”

“Tooru…”

Tooru cocks his head to the side, runs his feet up his wall, letting the coolness of the paint sink into the heat of his extremities. “Yes?”

“I love you.”

He almost drops his phone. He does forget to breathe for a second, and tries to take stock of what’s happening to him. His whole body feels warm and his heart is still thumping steadily away in his chest, though now he can hear it in his ears, feel his blood straining against where his phone is pressed to it. He can’t really feel any part of his body other than that. His center of being seems tied to the speaker right where he last heard Kuroo’s voice. And he somehow moves his mouth to say back, maybe as sincerely as he’s ever said anything, “I love you, too.”

Kuroo laughs, not very loud at first, but then louder. Tooru almost doesn’t realize he’s laughing too. “We’ll be okay,” Kuroo says.

Tooru turns on his side towards his desk. Above it hangs a calendar with a grainy picture of what he’s sure is a real spaceship that was taken in a field in Nebraska, in the United States. Below the picture are large X’s through the days, all in different colored pens, just whatever happened to be on his desk at the time. There are six more days before the large circle that indicates the start of next term in blue highlighter. He stares at that box and imagines a thousand things it signifies. “Of course we will.”


End file.
